No room for too many colleges, universities
Published on: Sunday, September 21, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said educational institutions in the State need to collaborate with each other and tap into each other's strengths to achieve a win-win situation for all parties. He said rather than recreating something and spending millions, educational institutions need to look at where they have an advantage in certain fields and collaborate."The population in Sabah and Sarawak will not support too many universities and colleges. There is a need for us to collaborate to share each other's expertise and given our state of facilities and the need to replicate in your own place, you need to work smart.ADVERTISEMENT "That's the way I would look at it, otherwise you will end up investing a lot of money for facilities that otherwise you can find somewhere else," said Masidi who is Minister in charge of education in the State."If you look at the national average at one time over 500-700 licences were issued to the private sector but now barely half of them are operational. "The reason is simple in that it doesn't make economic sense for us to create too many colleges while the number of students remain the same."Masidi said this during a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing event between Sabah Institute of Art and the Chungyu Institute of Technology Taiwan, University of Kennedy, US and University College Technology Sarawak, here.ADVERTISEMENT "Of course it is good if you can get some foreign students but if you look at foreign countries the private education sector is also in a bad state. So here we are investing millions of ringgit to create a private sector institution (in an industry) which is finding it difficult to make ends meet because there are not enough students. "If you want to consider, after the economic crisis of 1997, the banks opted for consolidation. The Government then said we need to look into the future and our competitiveness if we want to remain in the industry.
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"So from over 20 over banks it was consolidated into 10. Perhaps this is a lesson that all private (educational) institutions should seriously consider. "I know you are each proud of your own educational institutions but if you think of the world today then there is a need for us to re-look into the human resource available to use, the amount of money that we can invest in institutions and of more importantly the quality of human resource at our disposal. For this reasons then we need to work smart." Masidi said this is a possible solution in light of problems facing the private education sector in the State which is all about functioning with enough turnover to break even or even remain standing. "I know some of you may not be happy I'm making this statement. I'm not a businessman but I'm looking at it from a practical point of view."But in the end I feel it does pay to talk to your friends and even your competitors and sit down and say how we can work together. "Perhaps this is the better way forward given that there is only a certain number of students available in Sabah and Sarawak."He said the population of Sabah and Sarawak is about 6.2 million and there are only so many students available for so many universities and colleges."So we need to practical about this." A second reason Masidi said is the need to be marketable. "With so many colleges and universities in the market the first victim will be the quality of education."There will be competition for human resources and teaching staff and you will end up with mediocre standards. "Of course the teaching staff will also be quite smart in making themselves available for auction. Who offers the most money they will go to that place, so you risk losing continuity in your own institution. "The question is how long are you going to let this vicious cycle to control your education instead of creating an quality education hub that not only benefits the people in both Sabah and Sarawak but perhaps also lures students from overseas due to good teaching staff.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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"It is not only just about profit but profit with responsibility to help Malaysians to compete with the rest of the world."The MOU, meanwhile, was signed between President and CEO of SIA, Prof. Datuk Wilson Yong, and President of Chungyu Institute of Technology Taiwan, Dr Chen Chi Hsiung, University College Technology Sarawak Vice Chancellor Datuk Dr. Abdul Hakim Juri and University of Kennedy representative Tony Lin.