Many medical lecturers leave Malaysian public universities for greener pastures

More incentives, better pay and lesser workload were the main reasons why most medical lectures are leaving public universities for private institutions of higher learning.

In the last 6 months, Universiti Sains Malaysia felt the pang with 38 lecturers leaving. Last year, 21 clinical lecturers left USM.

Ideally the ratio of lecturer to student is 1:4 (clinical) and 1:6 (non-clinical).

To temporarily resolve this problem, Malaysia has been taking in foreign lecturers to make up for the loss.

The Education Ministry, however, has set up a committee to look into improving conditions for medical lecturers in the public service. Heading the committee is Secretary-General II Prof. Datuk Seri Dr Zaini Ujang. Universities with medical faculties will also be represented in the committee.

Currently, Malaysia has 9 public universities with medical faculties and 20 private institutions of higher learning with medical programmes.