What actually the article trying to say?
The sub-headline stating that it was mismanagement, corruption and waste issue.The article starts with the rank of Malaysian university in World University Ranking and QS ranking which saw many well-established university in Malaysia dropped. UniMap VC stated that the methods used to measure and rank was changed which was criticize by Hunter in the article ("Yet many universities within the top 100 Asian universities were established relatively recently. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, ranked 7th was established in 1980, Nanyang Technological University, ranked 10th was set up in 1981, and Pohang University of Science and Technology, ranked 11th, was established in 1986"- Hunter). One of the reason, stated by Hunter is that due to the universities in Malaysia restricted student from vocally express their thought and give 'Bersih 4' as one of the sample.
I agreed that no matter what methods used, if it works for many of the university, it shall works for minority too and it shall not be used as valid reason to accept the reality. However, I totally disagreed that our universities restricted student from vocally express their thought. There are many ways to express our thought. The most important when voice out your thought, is it shall be legally accepted. Even in Australia, where Hunter came from, you can't even have demonstration like 'Bersih' and the police there is even tougher than ours.
Corruption, Waste and Mismanagement
The article continues with Audit report on some local university. Hunter pointed out few university with many issues such as incompetent staff, unwise spending, lack of business thinking, wrong selection of people, etc...Hunter refers to Audit report in 2012. It might be true on the year it was released which it refers to previous years (or the same year of the audit being done). However, Hunter shall refers to recent audit report too, of which I believed that there are lots of improvement since then. And I agreed with Unimap VC on his statement that there are lots of works to do to improve and to solve many outstanding issues in the local university. And I urged not just Unimap VC, but to all VCs of Malaysian university, to get the RIGHT people in the team and increase the COMPETENCIES of your staff and lecturer. Build relationship with the industries and DO NOT limits to academy for the sake of not putting any stress on the student. Give them a challenge and not protecting them by not giving them chances to meet the real world because you afraid that they will get stress and therefore failed to move forward.
On last two paragraph, Hunter mentioned the academic issues and the dominant control by VC. On academic issue, of which he stated that many local university still lacking of research talent or research minded student. To be honest, I kind of agree with this statement. One of many sample, which I think relevant to the statement is a research on the effect of aurora to underground electricity. It may be something, but to majority of the world including Malaysia, it does not have any impact at all. Aurora only happens to few countries and we all knows that is has impact to magnetic fields of the earth when it happen. When I read the research, the first question I asked myself were, what is the expected result and what is the expected outcome? Just to prove it has impact, which we all know or to develop some protection mechanism from affecting the underground electric? What ever it was, I hope to see some usable or notable result/outcome which can be industrialize as the research was ain't cheap. Else, it will only validate Hunter's hypothesis as true. Nevertheless, there are research that I thought it is valuable not just Malaysia, but to the rest of the world, done in many local university. The only problem is the marketability as many of these research is done by academician without collaboration with industries. I believed that if University to partners with industry, it will bring the right values and impact to the community and universities.
On the dominant control of VC, I had to disagree with Hunter on this. It will not be the cause for disgrace of Malaysian education. Every leader has their own management style and every leader will only works with people that can work with them.
Is our education that bad
Back to my question. Is it that bad based on Hunter? It depends on the perspective the reader. To me, some of the statements are true and there are statements that I disagree with. Personally, Malaysian education is not that bad, but it do requires lots of improvement.From the perspective of Haszeli
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