EMPHASIS on revenue over quality education, overworked academics and lack of financial and academic transparency are some of the problems plaguing private universities in Malaysia, lecturers said.

As such, when Education Minister Maszlee Malik recently announced measures to reform public universities to allow greater academic freedom, many academicians from private universities were left feeling marginalised.

They say that private universities, too, are in great need of reform, and not just in the areas of academic and political freedom.

There are 47 listed private universities in Malaysia governed by the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996, which allows private universities and university colleges to provide tertiary education and to confer their own degrees.

A lecturer at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) in Kampar said most of these universities lack proper monitoring to ensure that quality education is prioritised over increasing student intakes.

“Most of the private institutions of higher education are managed as business enterprises with the primary motive of increasing student intake and making money – and not about education for the larger community,” said the lecturer on condition of anonymity.

“There is not much emphasis put on academic excellence as the staff are often asked to conduct events that will generate publicity to the college as well as attract potential students.

Another academic from a private university in Kuala Lumpur said while more private universities are now placing greater emphasis on the quality of their programmes, lecturers are given heavy teaching schedules to accommodate frequent intakes year-round.

“In short, we are turned into a teaching machine. We are always so exhausted by our daily tasks and busy semester system that I doubt many of us have the time to slow down and think of big issues such as ‘academic freedom’,” she said.

The Utar lecturer agreed that strict key performance index (KPI) targets and having three semesters per year left many academics little time to conduct high quality research.

“I observed that the lack of time and rest given to academics pushes some of them to co-write papers. In fact, I have seen some conference papers with more than five authors.

“Academics are struggling to juggle their time between research and teaching load as well as the huge amount of administrative work,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

“These hinder academics from producing high quality research as they usually write on topical issues with results that are predictable.”

Another academic at an established private university said reform was necessary for more than academic autonomy.

Also speaking on condition of anonymity, he said private universities faced challenges of academic staffing and workload, curriculum structuring and transformation, accreditation, and greater financial transparency and accountability. They also seek a bigger role for academic staff and students in governance arrangements.

As for political freedom on campus, an academic who did not wish to be  identified said students’ political freedom was severely stifled in private colleges and universities.

“In my experience, students who take my news reporting and writing class are often turned down by the management for interviews when they do their news writing assignments. This unhealthy practice curbs students from being critical of their environment,” he said.

Earlier this month, Maszlee had announced a slew of plans to abolish legal provisions that bar students in public universities from being politically active and empower the students to hold campus elections without intervention from university administrations.

Mazlee pledged to bring the plans on the abolishment of certain laws in this coming Parliament seating. – October 20, 2018.