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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Troubled MUST strives to clean up its mess


Faculty members have girded themselves in the battle to turn around the troubled private varsity.


Founded as a premier university on the back of a coveted partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001, a private university is today facing an uphill battle to turn itself around.

NONEBut according to its chief executive, Leong Choon Heng, who took over about three months ago, the way out for the Malaysian University of Science and Technoloy (MUST) is "aggressive marketing".

"The previous management pursued the wrong model. We have quality teaching at good prices but no one knew about it... We have grants for research but no student does it," he said in an interview recently.

Malaysiakini contacted Leong after receiving a tip-off on the difficulties faced by MUST, despite it receiving a total of RM100 million from 2001 to 2006 under a government grant.

Topping the list of problems is the one arising from under-qualified students admitted into its foundation programme.

MUST foundation certificates rejected

Leong said it was more a case of oversight, with the SPM subject English for Science and Technology erroneously considered a science subject.

azlanAs a result, these students were rejected by other institutions they approached to further their studies, leaving MUST facing accreditation issues.

MUST's foundation studies graduate certificates have been rejected by other institutions as their SPM results revealed that they should not have been accepted by MUST in the first place.

"It was a mistake. We have accepted some of these students into our own degree programmes and I have managed to convince other institutions to give (the other students) a try. Only some students who insist on going to a certain institutions are having problems," he said.

As a result, the university is yet to receive its licence to run the foundation studies programme from the Ministry of Higher education, but Leong said he has received indication that this will be given soon.

The 'mistake', he said, has been a blessing for some students who were "not motivated" in secondary schools but were now thriving in their undergraduate studies from the quality of teaching at MUST.

Poor marketing undermined institute

Leong said that some of the 107 students of the MUST-MIT postgraduate programme, which expired in 2004, too, were snapped up by multinational companies alongside Ivy League graduates.

azlanMany of the faculty members are products of leading universities, including Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge, but this message has been kept in the dark by the previous management.

Previous chief executive Omar Abdul Rahman, who was former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's science and technology adviser for almost two decades, resigned in March 2010.

In the few months that the new management, made up mostly of faculty members, ran the show, MUST has done things which the previous management apparently failed achieve in about a decade of administration.

It has attended education roadshows nationwide, linked up with foreign universities to provide exchange semester opportunities to students and companies to enhance industry experience.

The university is also building up a business school in a bid to expand its reach. It now offers 22 undergraduate and post-graduate courses.

All this, it hopes, will lead to higher enrolments in March and September. Enrolment is MUST's final lifeline as the remnants of the government grant can barely last them the year.

"The good thing is we don't have any debts," Leong said.

5,000 students by 2010 target stands

Despite running low in funds, the university is also talking to many parties, including politicians from both sides of the divide, in an attempt to provide financial assistance to potential students.

NONE"There are many institutions for students who have money, and those with very good grades will do well on scholarships abroad, but what about the moderate students?" the faculty member asked.

He added that what MUST is offering is good education and industry experience at an affordable price, something that most students would want.

With that, Leong expects to enrol 100 students for each of the 22 undergraduate and postgraduate courses offered annually, enabling MUST to reach the target of 5,000 students by 2012. - Malaysiakini

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