Evaluating the Higher Education Action Plan (Part 1)

Two blueprints which outline how the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) aims to transform the state of higher education in Malaysia was launched in early September. These two blueprints are: the National Higher Education Strategic Plan and National Higher Education Action Plan 2007-2010. I think many of our readers have been asking us to comment on these blueprints but because of various commitments both Tony and I haven't gotten down to going through these two documents in detail. I finally had some time today and I decided that I would go through these blueprints and share some of my thoughts on some of the strengths and weaknesses of the blueprints. This first post is mostly about my general impressions of the Action Plan.

Firstly, I'm quite certain that both documents were not written by civil servants within the MOHE but was probably sub-contracted to an outside consulting firm (the likes of BCG, McKinsey or Ethos Consulting). When one compares the Zahid Commission report with these two documents, especially the Action Plan, this immediately becomes clear. The Action Plan in particular, are chock full of slides that seem vaguely familiar to me, in terms of their formats. (I was a management consultant in a former life)

If I am correct, and I'm 90% sure that I am, it points to the sad state of our civil service that such an important document needs to be subcontracted to an outside consulting firm, at taxpayer's expense, to be completed. (There has been a growing trend within the various ministries to rely more and more on outside consultants for these types of blueprints). Other than the cost to the taxpayers, which might range anywhere from 500,000RM to 3 million RM, depending on the consultant used, I think that the two documents, in particular the Action Plan, has benefited having an outside consultant's input.

For one, instead of just having a blueprint (like the Ministry of Education's National Education Blueprint), the MOHE decided on having a Strategic Plan as well as an Action Plan. Having the additional Action Plan (which is where most of the press attention has been focused on) is useful because it gives an actionable timeline which the MOHE can be made accountable to and it makes clear some of the deliverables of the Strategic Plan (such as the Apex universities, MyBrain15, Academic Audit, Graduate Training Scheme and Lifelong Learning). Under the section on critical agendas, there are clear action plans which the MOHE has oversight over and needs to follow so as to implement these deliverables.

Having an outsider's perspective also means that the MOHE is not tied down to outmoded ways of thinking that may be symptomatic of many civil servants. Some of the language used in the Action Plan is definitely 'uncivil service like' especially in the section on the selection of the VC position, which I will discuss in further detail in a subsequent post. Most of the consultant who would have drafted / crafted this Action Plan would be young, idealistic and mostly overseas educated and would not have some of the political inhibitions which a civil servant or even a politician within the BN would have.

Of course, Malaysia is well known for having the ability to come up with great blueprints but fail in the implementation stage. While the Action Plan draws up concrete steps which the MOHE needs to take, it is still up to the MOHE to implement these stages efficiently and transparently.

My second observation about these two plans is that there is a great deal of the Zahid Commission Report on Higher Education which has been included in the content of these two plans. I think that this is a good step since it brings about some continuity and also reinforces certain positive philosophies and ideas over time. It is not like the situation in the MOE where the National Education Blueprint produced under Musa Muhammed was thrown out when a new Minister of Education, in this case Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, took over as the Minister and commissioned his own new National Education Blueprint. Tok Pah took the wise step of not throwing out the findings of the Zahid Commission, which was commissioned under the previous Minister for Higher Education, Shafie Salleh.

Improving higher education in Malaysia not only entails a mindset change within the leadership of the public universities in Malaysia but also a mindset change within the civil service in the MOHE. The fact that we have a consistent message being promoted within the MOHE, from the Zahid Commission to the time period under Tok Pa, helps, in my opinion, to spur on this mindset change within the MOHE.

Of course there are specific criticisms in regards to the Strategic and Action Plan which I have and will go into in subsequent posts, but I'm generally quite positive in regards to the substance of the Action Plan. Indeed, I see positive changes being brought about slowly within the MOHE and also in other initiatives that have to do with higher education being promoted and implemented by other ministries, most notably in MOSTI such as the QB3 Malaysia Program, blogged about here. (which I hope will be a positive and sustainable program, despite the insensitive remarks on the part of JJ while he was speaking to a group of Malaysian students there).

I'll talk about proposed changes to the governance structure in public universities in my next post.

P.S. You can read both plans here.