Varsities must dance to a different tune

EDUCATION is the core of a country’s development strategy.

As such, education has long enjoyed priority in budgetary allocation.

But, as indicated in this year’s budget, funding for public universities, the allocation has now been cut by almost 35% over the past two years.

In previous years, all public universities had comfortable margins in their operational funding. The rationale this year is that the universities must source half of their operating costs through commercialisation of research products, consultancies and shortterm courses.

It would seem that the universities, where academics inculcate both rational and irrational precepts of knowledge inquiry in their students, will now have to adopt a different paradigm, consonant with this material world of dollars and cents.

It may also mark the end of the university as a place where students learn to expand their mind and horizon and to revel in the wonders of the cosmos and the dialectics of the intellect in fathoming man-made and natural phenomena.

The university now is more concerned with practical applications to turn out manpower for industry. Knowledge that sharpens the mind to dwell on abstract and irrational thinking is a luxury.

Academics must now also dwell on commercial ventures as the universities move from a totally intellectual facility which equips students with professional skills, develops character and an inquisitive mind, to one where education is purveyed as a commercial product.

Academics have all along been the lifeline of universities and, together with infrastructure facilities, feature significantly in the process of knowledge inquiry and development.

What is more important is the expertise of the lecturers and professors who input knowledge, develop character and motivate their students.

But with the current cuts in funding, experienced professors are laid off once their contracts expire.

The rationale is that it is cheaper to get fresh lecturers than to maintain these professors.

By doing this, the universities lose the accumulated expertise that could better guide the students to explore the intricacies of knowledge.

Fresh lecturers lack experience and teaching skills in imparting and challenging the students to explore the vistas of knowledge.

As a consequence of these lay offs, research projects in various stages of completion are abandoned.

Education has become a product and branding is essential when marketing such products.

The current drastic cuts in university funding are a harbinger of change in the perception and function of the university.

It has morphed from the ancient concept of an intellectual enclave through a place for developing character and skills to now a commercialised educational institution that emphasises more on materials than human development.

There has to be a paradigm shift in the minds of the lecturers from just teaching, research and publications towards including product development, management, marketing and promotion. Advertising would invariably feature as a major component of a university’s expenditure.

The university of the future will be run more like a corporation than an academic institution.

Thus, it is no longer sufficient for the head of the university to only have impeccable academic credentials; he must also possess business and management acumen.

Academic excellence would no longer be the sole criteria in appointing the Vice Chancellor.

In trying to generate its own revenue, the university must have a business model alongside the academic programmers.

Professional courses and those that meet industry requirements will be given priority while those that merely add a humanising effect such as the performing and visual arts and literature will have to take a back seat, for they are not revenue-generating facilities.

Education now emphasises the turning out of skilful manpower that would serve the goods and services industries.

Nevertheless it must still inculcate ethics, integrity and the quest for truth as part of the educative process.

This is in line with the concept of National Transformation (TN50) as mooted by our Prime Minister, to empower the youths to take the nation to greater heights of development.

Thus, the Government cannot eschew its responsibility of providing a sound education for each and every child who needs to be equipped with professional skills as well as esoteric precepts, to chart the future of our people and the nation.

At the same time, the schools and universities system should be realigned synergistically to facilitate students to phase in from the lower to the higher level of educative process to enhance their intellectual and skill performance.

Therefore, the Government must continue to fund pre-university education (primary and secondary). It is only the tertiary education that is expected to be self-reliant with minimal government funding.

This minimal funding around 30% should stay, for it will allow the Government to guide the universities to conform to its national educational plan.

For now, the universities will have to grapple with the drastic cut in funding by trimming expendable inessentials. They must at the same time quickly develop a business model to generate revenue to meet the shortfall in government funding.

Difficult times are ahead. Initially, quality and standard of education may suffer as the administrators and lecturers adjust to this new paradigm.

It will take some time before they bounce back to a new level of corporate educative process.

The current drastic cuts in university funding are a harbinger of change in the perception and function of the university.