MOHE meets VCs of public unis to discuss funding

Higher Education Minister met with vice-chancellors of public universities to discuss reducing of public funding and assessing independence.

Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh met with vice-chancellors of all public universities yesterday to discuss the best practices public universities can employ to reduce their dependency on public funding. The government aims to reduce funds of public universities following the examples of various internationally renowned universities. However, universities depend 80%-90% on government funding currently and next year the dependency will be reduced to 70%.

Idris invites public universities to be creative and innovative when generating their own income. He also spoke of UPM Holdings as an example. This company is wholly owned by Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and serves as a model of a good university company. The experience with UPM Holdings confirms the ability of public unis to generate their own income in various ways. The company has generated more than RM30 million cash at hand and these earnings provide the university with equipment and facilities.

Additionally, Idris spoke of the iCGPA (Integrated Cumulative Grade Point Average) system to produce students with higher grades. The grading system was in research since 2009 and is unique to Malaysia. The system was rolled out in 2015 via a pilot programme that involved 5 universities. As of August of 2016, the programme is implemented in a total of 18 public universities.