THE March 16 announcement on the movement-control order (MCO) wreaked havoc on students, staff and administrators of public and private higher education institutions (HEIs).

Classes were hastily rescheduled, examinations postponed, and students scrambled to return home. Despite the chaos, there was a sense that it was all just temporary, and that everything would get back to normal in a few weeks.

But as the days went by, HEIs realised that “normal” would not come back anytime soon. Lecturers began conducting online lessons and rearranging their semester schedules to fit the new reality. Administrators and management teams began building business contingency plans to ensure financial stability and continuity. Students put in their best effort to continue their learning in such challenging times.

Now, nearing a month later, many have finally caught on to the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic. The announcements on the MCO’s extension had been expected, and many are preparing for the order to be in place until at least the middle of next month. That is one week before Raya, which, for many HEIs, means another week of inactivity. All in all, from March 18 to the end of the Raya celebrations, HEIs would have missed close to 2½ months of the full education experience.

There have been several critical issues raised by students, academics and HEIs’ management teams that should be resolved quickly.

Let’s talk about students

From day one, the issue that has most often played out in the media is students living on campus or in hostels who cannot return home. This is obviously a critical matter, as apparently, there are close to 80,000 students away from their families. Thankfully, both HEIs and the Malaysian public are handling this to the best of their ability, with allocations and contributions pouring in.

We must still sort out when and how they can return home. The conflicting messages from the authorities are unhelpful, and people seem to forget that this is not an insurmountable challenge. Sooner or later, they do have to return home.

What we fail to realise is that the pandemic is affecting more than 1.3 million students in various stages of their higher education journey, not just the 80,000 stuck on campus.

The primary concern for many is their academic progression. For example, we need to figure out what to do with students who are undergoing practical training or internship for their final-year course requirements, but cannot complete it due to the MCO. We need to determine what to do with students who are unable to complete mandatory coursework involving lab work or the use of technology that they don’t have access to or cannot afford. These and many more concerns regarding academic progression need to be addressed, with clear guidelines that provide for flexibility for HEIs.

The next issue is academic delivery, and the quality of teaching and learning during the MCO. No HEI that I know of has prepared for this type of situation, where people are not only barred from entering campus, but also not allowed to leave home. The bulk of education institutions are built for physical teaching and learning, from their programme structure and support facilities to teaching capacity.

Even some of our approved online distance-learning courses require face-to-face tutorial credit hours. We are not just talking about support for students – who are already in different locations, not all with strong broadband – but also for teaching staff, many of whom rely on their institutions’ facilities for the majority of their teaching aid.

The issues here are both short- and long-term in nature. What happens to students who cannot adapt to distance-learning mode, and then struggle with their marks for the semester? Should lecturers be more lenient in their assessment? If so, how does this impact knowledge transfer and retention? Finally, and more worryingly, how do we deal with the inevitable spike in graduate unemployment?

Bank Negara Malaysia has given a forecast of -2% GDP growth for 2020, with unemployment spiking to 4%. According to some economists, even this is conservative. We recently saw Statistics Department data that indicates the economic impact of the pandemic is severe and could be long-lasting. Graduates entering the workforce between now and the early part of the 2020s will struggle to find jobs, what more appropriate ones, with many firms struggling to retain existing employees.

On to institutions

As of 2018 (and the numbers have generally been constant since), there were 550,000 students enrolled in our 20 public HEIs, 96,000 in community colleges and 11,500 in polytechnics. Collectively, 658,000 students were studying in government tertiary education institutions.

Another 670,000 students were spread across 447 private institutions. Now, whether we have too many, or even if we should have any, private institutions is an interesting question to debate. But the purpose of this piece is to examine the impact of the pandemic on all HEIs.

Even prior to this crisis, Malaysia’s higher education landscape had been grappling with structural issues, like a shrinking domestic market (the number of SPM students has been on a slight decline every year since the 2010s), flat growth in the number of foreign students, rapid expansion of capacity (seats available), public institutions being asked to start generating revenue while private institutions see their revenues declining, and increased competition resulting in lowering margins for many institutions. As a result, many private institutions have seen their profits turn into losses, while public ones struggle to expand their intake and improve their offerings.

All this will lead to a massive consolidation of private players and a relook at the sustainability of public HEIs, which draw some RM20 billion annually from our national budget. Due to the pandemic, this process will accelerate, with many institutions, especially those relying on foreign student recruitment, struggling to generate enough revenue to cover their costs.

Though it is easy to lump all PHEIs as leeches, the fact remains that a lot of the bigger ones are run by non-profit private foundations, or owned by state governments (like Unisel), or government-linked companies (like MMU and UTP), and many more are run at losses as part of a larger conglomerate.

The potential collapse of the private higher education sector may be due, but serious consideration needs to be made as to who will fulfil the demand of an annual market that is 700,000 strong, who will hire the 23,000 academic staff currently employed by private institutions, and the impact of losing the RM40 billion plus contribution to Malaysia’s GDP that the industry generates. These issues are long-term in nature, but the crisis has accelerated the discussion, with some institutions struggling as we speak to see themselves through the MCO period.

What can we do?

Even as you read this, policymakers are gathering feedback from students and institutions. Perhaps, they are considering the same issues laid out above, and having deep discussions to resolve these issues, with many more operational ones not considered in this piece. But for the purpose of discussion, how would one treat these issues?

The first is to take the next two weeks as an opportunity for the Higher Education and Health Ministries to work together on an SOP for the safe and efficient transfer of the 80,000 students stranded on campus back to their hometowns. A comprehensive plan, including an approved transporter, time of travel and routes, must be accompanied with clear regulations, guidelines, and communication to students and parents.

Next, we have seen some suggestions for all HEIs to be given greater flexibility to complete their academic calendar, with scheduling and credit-hour limitations removed until at least the end of 2020. These will alleviate concerns regarding academic progression by allowing for variations to the length of the academic semester.

It is also recommended for the various institutions and subject-matter experts to quickly convene and make recommendations on content delivery and examinations. These should follow the best practices that can be applied in the Malaysian setting. The technical recommendations (spec sheets) are then contrasted with the current institutional capacity and the government’s offer of free access to the platforms recommended for use by all institutions and students.

The Higher Education Ministry may have already updated the corporate information of all institutions. There is an urgent need to measure the sustainability of these institutions and their viability in the next six months with a stress test conducted on the balance sheets. Pursuant to this, a plan must be made for a rescue package for those with a cash-flow mismatch, as well as a plan to transfer students to other institutions in the event of closures.

On graduate unemployment, the government can consider a job-guarantee programme for the first year after graduation, where fresh graduates are given the opportunity to work on specific projects for the government. Some ideas for these projects include a tutorial programme for underprivileged kids, a government IT transformation plan, large-scale infrastructure work and local government improvement initiatives.

These and many more ideas are out there. What is needed now is a clear understanding of all the issues in the short-, medium- and long-term. There is every reason to believe that we can overcome these challenges if we prioritise the main stakeholders – 1.3 million students, 65,000 academics, and thousands more support staff in close to 500 HEIs nationwide. – April 13, 2020.

* Najmie Noordin reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.