Open letter to Tok Pa

Apologies for my silence on the latest THES rankings. Thanks to Tony for his many updates. I've been trying to wait for all the discussion to materialize before putting my thoughts together. Also took a short holiday with my wife to visit one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous houses - Fallingwater - during the Thanksgiving break here in the US. I thought that I'd sum up my thoughts by writing an open letter to Tok Pa as a response to his letter in the Star. I'll also send this as a letter to Mkini.

Dear Minister of Higher Education,

I was encouraged by your letter published in the Star on the 14th of November addressing the issue of our public universities falling out of the Top 200 ranked universities in the world, according to the THES.

I was encouraged because you did not dwell on the how changes in the methodology used by QS, the company responsible for compiling these rankings, might have affected the ranking of Malaysian universities in the THES. While understanding the technicalities of why our public universities dropped off in the THES rankings might be important to gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of our public universities, I believe that you know, from your many travels to top universities in the world, that our public universities are very far from being anywhere close to the top 200 universities in the world, however measured.

I have also been encouraged by the way your Ministry has been very focused in its approach in attempting to transform our public universities as exemplified by the National Higher Education Strategic Plan and the corresponding National Higher Education Action Plan 2007-2010. The goals set out in these Plans are realistic and if achieved, will certainly make significant improvements in our public university education system.

At the same time, I am aware of how political considerations and restrictions can prevent even the best laid plans from being fulfilled and hinder a politician's ability to speak honestly.

For example, you mentioned that 'Still, massification of higher education was the right choice for a young, developing country that had to ensure its citizens access to education, and thus a brighter future.' Was the indiscriminate expansion of higher education in Malaysia a necessary thing in the context of Malaysia? Is this not one of the reasons why there are a large number of unemployed and unemployable Malaysian graduates currently in the market largely as a result of them not being able to pick up the requisite skills to make them employable in the marketplace? Would not an emphasis on vocational and technical education for those who are not academically inclined have made more sense instead of pushing these students into courses in which they have little interest in and is at least partly responsible for making some of them unemployable? Was the practice of 'awarding' and building universities in every state in Malaysia not a political tool for 'rewarding' voters in these states and as a result lead to a decline in quality in exchange for quantity?

At the same time, I would guess that it was not possible for you to say that the 'massification' of higher education in Malaysia also went together with policies which prevented otherwise qualified Malaysian students who could not get the courses of their choice to leave for universities outside Malaysia and for less qualified candidates to 'flood' the gates of our public universities, so to speak? In addition, a large pool of above average students were also awarded scholarships by the government and government linked companies to study overseas, leaving our public universities almost denuded of our top students.

I am also sure that you realize that the 'massification' of higher education in Malaysia not only decreased the quality of our students in exchange for quality but that the same phenomenon was also taking place among the ranks of the faculty. Lecturers were promoted indiscriminately, more based on 'know-who' than on 'know-how' and that promotion policies were also responsible for driving away many otherwise qualified academics to leave for universities overseas, leaving the ranks of many faculties relatively denuded.

The notion that a Malaysia public university can even be in the conversation of being anywhere close to the top 200 universities in the world is somewhat laughable given that less than 50% of most faculties in our public universities have PhDs. While having a PhD is not a necessary prerequisite for doing good research, it is important as an indicator of having received the proper training to do good research, having worked under experienced supervisors and learned from them and having the ability to complete a major piece of research work in the form of a thesis. Is it so surprising that our public universities have such a low peer review and low citation scores when many of the faculty are not trained to publish and produce cutting edge research? When this is combined with a culture which does not reward publications and punish non-publication, it is no surprise that our faculty has and will continue to score low on peer review and citations per faculty.

How can you change this? I think MOHE and the public universities are already taking some steps to address this starting with the push to send more Malaysian faculty to complete their PhDs in overseas universities. But even then, the process by which non-PhD holders currently lecturing in our public universities can obtain funding from MOHE to do their PhDs overseas is still far from transparent. From anecdotal evidence which I've heard from some of our readers, the process is still very much driven by know who rather than know how and sadly, by racial quotas instead of by performance ability. If this practice continues, I would not be surprised if the percentage of sponsored students obtaining their PhDs would be less than 50%, again leaving the MOHE in the quandary of not being able to achieve its 60% target of PhD holders by 2010.

While your strong words of inculcating a 'publish or perish' culture is encouraging, it will have little 'teeth' if not seriously implemented in our public universities. Our public university lectures are in a position of being almost 'unfireable' and hence, a threat of 'publish or perish' is not seen as credible unless real action is taken. Does this mean that you are willing to slowly 'weed out' the non-performers in our public university system (through retirements and such) and replace them with highly motivated and better qualified academics? Only time will tell.

The road ahead is fraught with challenges, both internal and external. As events and trends in the world continue to develop and evolve, our public universities are in danger of being left behind. At the same time, internal political constraints and considerations makes it even more difficult to change from within. Your job is not one which I envy and I applaud you for at least taking positive and concrete steps to effect change, hopefully at a substantive rather than a cosmetic level. But I fear that the restraints that is the Malaysian political system will eventually get the better of your good intentions, at great expense to our country.