The nation was saddened by the recent passing away of Tun Arshad Ayub who succumbed to a medical condition. Many perceived Arshad as a rare breed of civil servant.
As the first director of Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM), now Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Arshad has left behind a hard to match legacy on higher education, an act which not many can follow.
His strategy not only delivered a resounding success, but also created a positive social impact.
Arshad has been hailed as an exemplary civil servant, committed to serving the nation without fear or favour. Through his legendary innovative idea on education, close to a million students have graduated from ITM. Together, they form a significant part of the country's professionals in many fields.
What is most striking to many is that he defied all odds to create the opportunity for low grade students to pursue higher education. Through the ecosystem he created at ITM, literally all the students, who went through the system, graduated beyond the usual expectations to contribute to the country's talent needs.
Before that daring experiment in educational strategising by Arshad, students who failed to obtain enrolment into universities were left with little chance of expanding their potential talent.
Many were from the rural areas where schools were not as well equipped as those in the urban centres.
Arshad saw such an unfortunate phenomenon as a waste for the country in terms of building the right talents to drive the nation's quest for progress and development. His idea was to change the system of enrolment for higher education.
Instead of only allowing those who passed the critical sixth form examination to enter universities, he created a system to salvage the laggards.
Obviously, he had to engage the people in power then to agree to the change. It was not easy. But, Arshad must have deployed the right negotiation strategy to get his idea accepted. According to some, not a few did not share his optimism.
Again, Arshad showed the need for civil servants to constantly negotiate with those in authority to push the right ideas for effective nation building.
This important trait is unfortunately sorely lacking nowadays. Many instead follow blindly the decisions made by those in power.
Let us take a close look at the strategy taken by Arshad in transforming the country's education landscape then. For example, why did he choose to maintain English as the medium of instruction?
There must have been a compelling reason for that. Doing that at a time when the country was also witnessing a rise in Malay language activism was a risk he had to take. I am sure he must have faced a lot of opposition.
Again, his good negotiation skills must have helped him appease the critics. He pressed ahead with his strategy. And looking at the positive impact of that decision on the nation's highly internationalised talent pool, that should also serve as a lesson in our current debate on the right language strategy for the country.
Arshad not only made English as the medium of instruction in education, but he also created a platform for students to be multilingual. True to his legacy, ITM has always been offering courses for students to learn most other languages of the world.
His farsightedness proved to be his other strategic weapon. He was the one who first brought in professional courses like law and finance into the country.
These courses were rather alien then. And he did this through effective international partnering, a practice which was also uncommon way back then.
Now, the practice of international credit transfer and twinning with overseas universities has become widespread. There is no doubt that Arshad had made a lasting impact in changing for the better the landscape of higher education in the country.
It would be wise for the country to continue improving on the education strategy that Arshad introduced, instead of adopting another regressive policy.
As a nation highly dependent on external trade, his initiative on promoting multilingualism should be vigorously promoted. But, most of all, we should not be too dependent on examination results to open doors in higher education for our young.
Arshad should be widely promoted as an iconic personality who has defied the odds to widen the democratic choices in higher education for our young.
The writer is a professor at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy, UCSI University
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times