We want jobs, not more universities

The lack of a university is the least of the concerns of Kuala Kangsar folk.

COMMENT

Do we need more universities in Malaysia, or do we need more jobs? Where will all the graduates find employment? Did the Education Ministry not hear the alarm bells ringing when around 1,000 trainee doctors had to leave their profession because of their poor English?

We know that most Malay graduates aspire to have jobs in the civil service. The pull factors are the guaranteed 8-to-4 culture and the ease with which they can obtain loans for cars and houses.

In the private sector, standards are higher. A graduate is expected to be proactive and proficient in English.

During his recent campaign round, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that Kuala Kangsar would have its first university, the Universiti Sultan Azlan Shah. He promised that the current Kolej Universiti Islam Sultan Azlan Shah (Kuisas) would be upgraded to university status.

If Najib were to speak English to the people of Kuala Kangsar, he would probably find that the older citizens, especially the Malays, speak good English. Thanks to the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) and nationalist propaganda, very few younger Malays are proficient in English because they have been told that is it unpatriotic to speak the language.

Moreover, those who aspire to have jobs in the public sector know that little English is used in the lower ranks of the civil service. It is different once civil servants climb the greasy pole to the top. Once they are there, speaking English is de riguer because it is a status symbol. At least, this was what the Pengarah of a certain government department once said.

For most Kuala Kangsar people, having a university is the least of their concerns. High prices for most services, the increasing cost of goods, the GST, and the sleepy town image of Kuala Kangsar worries them most. Retirees complain because their pensions are insufficient to cope with the spiraling costs. One family whose three sons graduated from local universities forced them to stay with relatives in Kuala Lumpur to search for employment. That was a few years ago, and they are still trying.

Kuala Kangsar is a district steeped in agriculture and farming. Few people can afford to send their children to university. A visit to the hospital is a grim experience. When one is ill, one still has to go to Ipoh for specialist care. Kuala Kangsar needs a total uplift, not another university.

Malaysia has around 20 public universities, 414 private colleges, 37 private universities, 20 university-colleges and seven campuses of foreign universities. To the south west, in Teluk Intan, we have two university branch campuses – Universiti Teknologi Mara Teluk Intan Campus of the Faculty of Medicine and the RM15 million Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Teluk Intan Campus Community Health Centre. And then there’s the promise of the Teluk Intan University, a promise made in a by-election campaign some time ago.

To the south, just beyond Ipoh, is Kampar, where the Perak Campus of the Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) is located. Further south, in Tanjung Malim, there’s the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI). This is one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the country. It was established in 1922 as a teachers’ training college.

One teacher said, “In the 60s and 70s, Malaysian universities were world class. They were recognised for their academic brilliance and quality of students. Today, our universities churn out graduates with degrees which are not worth the paper on which they are printed.”
So, do we need more universities, or do we need better teachers and a sound education system with English as one of the core subjects?

Mariam Mokhtar is an FMT columnist.