EDUCATION is the core of a country’s development strategy. It develops various types of manpower that the country needs such as professionals, artisans, artists and thinkers. It does not only train people to develop and create physical products and amenities, but must also nurture scholars and even eccentrics to better understand the self in a socio-physical and spiritual configuration and to fathom the meaning of existence. As such, education has always enjoyed priority in budgetary allocations.
But this year it has been given a smaller amount. Funding for public universities has been cut by almost 50 per cent in two years, in this year’s budget.
The rationale is that the universities must source half of the funds to meet their operating costs through the commercialisation of research products, consultancies and short-term courses. It would seem that the universities which serve as repositories of knowledge will now have to adopt a different paradigm consonant with this material world of ringgit and sen. It may also mark the end of the old concept of the university as a place where students learn to expand their minds in intellectual pursuit.
Universities will be more concerned with practical applications to produce manpower for industry. Academics must now also focus on commercial ventures as universities move from playing the role of intellectual facility to one where education is seen as a commercial product
Academics have all along been the lifeline of universities. What is more important is the expertise of the lecturers and professors who input knowledge, develop character and motivate their students.
But with the cut in funding, experienced professors will be laid off once their contract expires. The rationale is that it is cheaper to get fresh lecturers. Universities will lose their accumulated expertise. Fresh lecturers lack the experience and teaching skills in imparting and challenging students to explore the vistas of knowledge.
The current state of affairs of drastic cuts in funding is a harbinger of change in the perception and function of universities.
The new breed of administrators and lecturers must not only be competent in their chosen field of specialisation but must also be equipped with the fundamentals of business management to sell and promote their courses and products.
There has to be a paradigm shift in the minds of lecturers from just teaching, research and publications to include product development, management, marketing and promotion. Advertising would invariably feature as a major component of university expenditure.
To generate their own revenue, universities must have a business model alongside the academic programmes. Invariably academic programmes will have to be evaluated according to their economic viability.
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, literature, poetry will have to take a back seat.
Education now emphasises the training of skilful manpower to generate revenue and boost social and economic development. 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 2050 National Transformation (TN50), as mooted by our prime minister, to empower youth to take the nation to greater heights of development.
Sound education must be provided to each child. Children also need to be equipped with professional skills, as well as esoteric percepts.
Schools and the university system should be realigned synergistically to help students to move from the lower to the higher levels
of the educative process to enhance their intellectual performance and skills.
The government should 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 of around 30 per cent should stay for it allows the government to guide universities to conform to the national educational plan and determine its future trajectory.
For now the universities will have to grapple with the drastic cut in funding. It 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. It will take sometime before they bounce back to a new level of corporate educative process.
MOHAMED GHOUSE NASURUDDIN, Penang