This follows a report in which public university lecturers said they were feeling the cash crunch following the government’s recent budget cuts.
Speaking to FMT, Anis Syafiqah said although fees had not increased, it was obvious that public universities were forced to make cuts in other essential areas.
“For example, activities or student programmes outside the classroom which require the use of university facilities such as university halls are no longer free,” she said.
“The universities’ managements are forced to charge rent to student bodies if they want to use the halls.”
Anis said she had also noticed that universities were no longer able to extend the contracts of some staff members including lecturers.
Meanwhile, she said, administrative work still had to be done.
“So some lecturers are forced to take over administrative responsibilities due to a lack of manpower.
“This has resulted in a decline in quality as lecturers are forced to pay attention to other tasks instead of teaching.”
FMT also spoke to students who, on condition of anonymity, expressed their opinions over what they perceived as a decline in their education.
One said students themselves should take a more proactive role to ensure that measures were taken to address the problem.
“University students must first realise that this is happening, then they must talk to their student associations,” she said.
“Hopefully student associations will then take this matter to the university management, who will then take it up to the ministry.”
Another student said there should be other ways for universities to cut costs without sacrificing the quality of education.
“It’s unfair and it’s a little hard to understand why something like this is happening,” she said.
“It’s so obvious what the right thing to do is, so why aren’t our universities doing it?”
Afiqah Farieza contributed to this article.