PETALING JAYA: Allocation for the transformation of Malaysia’s higher education is needed in Budget 2024, said professor and provost for research and innovation at the Malaysia University of Science and Technology Geoffrey Williams (pic).
“For Budget 2024, the priorities for higher education and TVET are to make them more efficient and free at the point of study,” he told SunBiz.
He pointed out that the government in Sarawak has already set a target of free tertiary education by 2025 and this is a progressive and achievable aim.
“It is also possible in the rest of Malaysia ... and is becoming urgent because of the long-term issues in PTPTN which make it unsustainable. Already the discounts for PTPTN will end because they are unaffordable and make the financial stability of PTPTN worse,” he said.
In Budget 2023, the government allocated RM6.7 billion under seven key ministries for the implementation of various Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) initiatives.
Williams said the allocation of RM6.7 billion should be stopped and government TVET institutions closed or sold into the private sector.
He suggested that the RM6.7 billion should be combined with the overall higher education budget in Budget 2024 to provide free education for everyone.
“Giving people an education voucher and allowing them to spend it as they choose is a much better system,” he suggested.
He added that the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) is right to say that TVET should be industry-led.
He commented that employers are best placed to decide what skills they require for their businesses, as trainers in colleges and universities are not the best people to train students in skills-based learning.
Furthermore, he stated, that academics are skilled in higher-order thinking and education, not in practical training which are two very different things.
“Many have never worked outside of academia, they are often not up to date with industry needs and have very old experience,” he said.
Additionally, he stated that universities and colleges often do not have the right infrastructure or modern equipment that graduates will use in the workplace and the whole university environment is completely unlike that of the workplace.
“The most successful systems of skills training such as modern apprenticeships in the UK or the dual vocational system in Germany have industry-led programmes with industry active trainers, which take place in the workplace and not in college,” he said.
