Its president, Prof Mohd Idrus Mohd Masirin, said the autonomy was in the transition process, taking into account the position of the public universities as important entities which educated Malaysians at the highest level.

“If absolute autonomy was given, the fees would definitely shoot up and people in the lower-income group would not have a chance to study in public universities.

“Now, even with the low fees, we still see many students having to go through the second channel of vocational and skills colleges and institutions to further their education,” he said in a statement to Bernama here today.

He was commenting on a June 30 report which quoted IDEAS as saying the freedom of autonomy of public universities was limited as it was connected to fund allocation and research grants from the government.

In the report, IDEAS chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan was quoted as questioning the government’s objective of ensuring autonomy for public tertiary institutions, and called for the abolition (or amendment) of the Universities and University Colleges Act (Auku) 1971 so that these institutions could be fully self-regulated.

Idrus said the autonomy given to public universities was still subject to government regulations as their funding came from the government.

“The government should have a say in the budget planning and spending in public universities.

“However, these universities must be given the trust to administer, through the university board, to run and confirm programmes as well as monitor their implementation.

“However, the view that Auku should be abolished is not reasonable because it was created to be a form of control and reference point for all universities in the country.”

He said without Auku, many discrepancies in administration and management could occur.