Discussion on higher education
MERITOCRACY should be the only criteria when individuals are hired to helm public universities.
Universiti Malaya (UM) Faculty of Economics and Administration professor of political economy Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said merit should be the sole basis for the selection of top management and academic staff in public universities.
He claimed that vice-chancellors were “all politically appointed”.
This began when the Universities and University Colleges Act (AUKU) 1971 was introduced, he said, adding that the act also stifled student involvement in politics.
“The vice-chancellor’s role was not only to check the students but to also check academics,” he said at a panel discussion on the higher education sector post GE-14 held at Taylor’s University. “This eventually led to a culture of fear in public universities.”
At the same dialogue, Malaysian Academic Movement (Gerak) chairman Prof Zaharom Nain said standards have been continuously falling in public universities.
The Nottingham University Malaysia Campus media and communications studies professor claimed that the environment in public universities is tightly controlled.
“That inflexibility is at the core of the problems that we have faced,” he added.
He said that one of the points in Gerak’s 10-point proposal was to restructure public university administration.
However, he pointed out, there must also be evidence that these vice-chancellors are in fact politically-appointed before they can be removed from their positions.
Another point in the proposal was to uphold meritocracy in the appointment of university staff.
The proposal was recently presented to Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik.
Taylor’s University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences executive dean Dr Matthew Johnson said: “As stakeholders within the higher education sector, our responsibility is to ensure continuous improvement of our education system for the benefit of our nation.” — By REBECCA RAJAENDRAM