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DAP calls for  high-powered Commission on Quality of  Higher Education to check the decline in university standards in the past three decades as an essential prerequisite to turn Malaysia into an international centre of academic excellence Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya,  Friday): Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad  yesterday admitted that the lack of recognition of Malaysian tertiary qualifications by foreign countries may affect the expansion of higher education in the country and the goal of turning Malaysia into a regional education hub and that the issue needs to be resolved if Malaysia is to attract more students from foreign countries to pursue full-degree programmes here.  He spoke of the government’s target of attracting 50,000 foreign students for 2010, which will generate RM1.5 billion a year in the education business, assuming each international student spends RM30,000 yearly on tuition fees and living expenses – not to mention the financial impact on other sectors of the economy.  As part of efforts to attract foreign students, the Education Ministry proposes to remove certain academic requirements under the law, such as exempting Bahasa Malaysia and Moral Education as compulsory subjects for foreign students.  It would appear that there has been a  subtle but important change in the higher education objective of the government, with the emphasis now more on turning Malaysia into a regional education hub rather than into an international centre of academic excellence, with  the important question of  higher education quality and academic excellence sidelined for the sake of  “education gold” from an influx of foreign students.  University quality and academic excellence are the surest magnets to attract foreign students to the country  to turn Malaysia not just into a regional education hub but an international centre of academic excellence. For this reason,  DAP calls for the establishment of a high-powered Commission on Quality of  Higher Education to check the decline in university standards in the past three decades as an essential prerequisite to turn Malaysia into an international centre of academic excellence and not just a  regional education hub regardless of quality.  It is most shocking that the Education Minister and the Vice Chancellors and Rectors of 17  Public Institutes of Higher Learning had completely ignored the important question of university quality and academic excellence,  with the latter at their recent meeting in Penang showing more interest to  promote the image of their institutions through the establishment of a corporate and international relations secretariat than to end the decline of academic excellence  in Malaysia in the past three decades and to raise university quality and standards.  The Education Ministers, the Vice Chancellors and Rectors should have focused on the dilemma of Malaysian higher education  where the education authorities have failed to strike a proper balance between quality and quantity, as highlighted by the fact that In the sixties, the country’s sole university, the University of Malaya,  was internationally  acclaimed as an  university of international repute and standing –  but three decades later, the University of Malaya was ranked a lowly 47th position out of 77 universities in the Asiaweek's 2000 ranking of Best Universities in the region, with two other named universities,  Universiti Putra Malaysia in 52nd and Universiti Sains Malaysia in 57th position.  Asiaweek in 2000 also had a separate ranking for "Science and Technology Schools" where Malaysia's sole mention, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, was ranked 30th out of 39th universities/institutes, while in the Asiaweek 2000 ranking of the Best MBA Schools in the region, Malaysia's top MBA school, the Faculty of Business and Accountancy in the University of Malaya was ranked a lowly 32rd place among the top 50 MBA schools. In 2001, the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) conducted a survey of foreign business executives working in the region on the best education system in Asia and the highest quality labour force. Malaysia came out poorly, ranked seventh out of 12 countries when we should be among the top three, which went to Japan, Singapore and South Korea.  The Commission on Quality of  Higher Education should come out with a blueprint for all public and private institutions of higher learning to maintain and improve the quality of learning and teaching and introduce periodic reporting  on educational outcomes through annual assessment and rating  of public and private institutes of higher learning  Two important pillars of academic excellence are meritocracy and academic freedom.  The Commission on Quality of  Higher Education should formulate a Charter for Academic Freedom as well as a purposive installation of meritocracy in higher education institutions, in particular:   Meritocracy in student intake – starting with a common university entrance examination for the 17 public institutions of higher learning and ending the farce of the present “meritocracy system without merit”, which has made Malaysian higher education a laughing stock in the international academic world; and Meritocracy for academic appointments and promotions in the public universities – and so long as non-Malay Malaysians can only be appointed to high academic posts, including Vice Chancellors,  of foreign universities of international repute but not to these positions in local universities, Malaysia lacks an important  building-block for academic excellence in our universities. (30/5/2003) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman