Minister to meet public university vice-chancellors on reducing independence on govt

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh will meet with the vice-chancellors of all public universities (UA) tonight to discuss the best way to reduce their dependency on the government, now at 80 to 90 percent.

Idris said the UAs must be creative in generating their own income to reduce their dependency on the government following the allocation cuts in Budget 2017.

He said the government's decision to reduce the UA's dependency to 70 percent in Budget 2017 was in line with the Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015-2025.

Quoting the example of UPM Holdings, a wholly-owned company of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), he said it was a model of a good university company, showing that UAs were capable of generating their own income.

"It (UPM Holdings) is well-managed and has more than RM30 million cash in hand, and has provided the university with a bus. So the issue of UAs not having money does not arise," he told reporters after launching the KMR OnePutra Residence UPM, here Thursday.

Commenting on the disclosure by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission that there were cases of students bribing lecturers to get high marks, Idris said the number of cases was small.

"Do not look at just one or two cases, we have 1.2 million students (in tertiary institutions).

"That is why we have the iCGPA (Integrated Cumulative Grade Point Average) system so that we produce students who are holistic and balanced," he said.

Last Sunday, the MACC confirmed that students in tertiary institutions offered lecturers money to increase their academic grades and pass examinations. -- BERNAMA