MALAYSIA GOVT ASKING PUBLIC COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES TO GENERATE THEIR OWN REVENUE FROM NEXT YEARS INSTEAD OF DEPENDING FOR FUNDING ON GOVT PETALING JAYA, Nov 2 — Public higher learning institutions will be required to start revenue generation to support their own programmes from next year. A source at the Education Ministry said the plan was to create a sustainable university concept to keep up with the rising cost of higher education. She said the system was one of the highlights of the Malaysia Education Development Plan — Higher Education, to be launched in the first quarter. It is among the measures of the incoming 11th Malaysia Plan, aimed at streamlining the higher education strategy with the National Education Blueprint launched in 2013. Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh had said changes to the existing National Higher Education Strategic Plan were crucial to “keep up with the pace” of higher education. - He said that if the industry was slow to act, many students from higher learning institutions could drop out. Pushing for public higher learning institutions to be more financially independent, the source said, was necessary so they were able to offer more scholarship programmes. “The plan will see public universities and colleges earning income through a variety of measures, key among them the setting up of endowment funds,” she said. “This does not mean the government will reduce financial support to the universities. It simply means the pie of available funds will be bigger.” She said although a few institutions had set endowment funds, their contribution had been “very little to insignificant”. “The ministry will be setting targets which will serve as a guideline for the institutions to meet through funds collected from the endowments,” she said. The funds earned would then be channelled to the institutions’ activities and programmes. “The endowments can, for example, be used to attract prominent international scholars through the setting up of scholarship programmes,” she said. “These scholars would in turn contribute to our international rankings through the publication of papers and citations by other scholars.” Partnerships with local industries will also be earmarked as a source of income for the institutions. “If the university has an expertise in a certain area, there will be opportunities for investment in the institution in exchange for its abilities as a consultant or solution provider,” the source said. “For this system to work well, the university has to ideally carve out its niche in the market.” Although the implementation of the plan may result in fee increases for international students, it would not affect Malaysian undergraduates. The source also said the ministry would likely emphasise technology in higher education, particularly the fast-growing Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) model. MOOCs are online courses that can be taken by a large number of audience?s with fast Internet connection and feature videos by lecturers, interactive quizzes, and forums and study discussions for the students and lecturers. “The ministry has set a goal of delivering 15 per cent of lectures conducted at local universities via MOOCs next year,” she said. -
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 02:16:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015