Too many universities?

By Samantha Joseph

According to a Kenanga report quoting Ministry of Higher Education numbers, there are 21 public universities, 37 private universities, 20 private college universities, seven foreign university branch campuses, and 414 active private colleges, 30 polytechnics and 73 public community colleges in Malaysia. That amounts to 602 HEIs.

These HEIs service 1.2 million students, resulting in a rather unbelievable average of 1,993 students per institution.

“There are too many private HEIs,” says an industry insider who has taught in both public and private institutions. “From an economic viewpoint, they are providing a public good, and because it is a public good, Malaysia has allowed a whole lot of private profit-seeking institutions in.

“Once they’ve set up base here, basically they can continue operating as long as their revenue overcomes the marginal cost of providing the education. Which means that we have a large number of colleges around producing an uneven quality of education.”

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Associate Professor Norzaini Azman pointed out that “although we need diversity in types of education available, we need to be careful, because the liberalisation of education has given rise to people who have taken advantage of the opportunities and see education as a commodity.”

“unbelievable average of 1,993 students per institution”

This is in contrast with the idea of education being provided for the public good. Once it becomes a commodity, she added, problems arise, including the management of quality.

The government agrees that there are too many public HEIs, implementing a two-year moratorium on private tertiary education institutions earlier this year. But this does little for either the already over-burdened sector or the quality of its programmes.

Part of the reason for HEI proliferation is the heavy importance put on higher education, which lead many parents to believe that any diploma or degree is better than a polytechnic education or none at all.

One of the most worrying developments observed by the industry insider in this rush for qualifications was in the field of medicine. “There are too many medical colleges in Malaysia. The Malaysian Medical Association has been concerned about the quality of the programmes offered.”

Overseas, he said, many of the medical colleges have their own hospital where students can pursue their medical training. What has been happening here is that many HEIs are riding on public hospitals, resulting in a distorted hospital bed-to-student ratio.

The sub-par training received by some of these students will have long-term consequences for healthcare delivery in this country, he added.

The private education industry started picking up in the 1990s, when the focus shifted to an industry fuelled by students who were unable to get a place in the existing public universities and the education industry was liberalised by the government.

According to the industry insider, the government encouraged the growth of private institutions to take off political pressure that arose from the numbers of non-bumiputra students who did not get places at public universities but could not afford to go overseas.

Combined with the rising middle class who could pay for an education, this brought about the rapid rise of the private for-profit HEIs.

Now, education has become one of the sectors in focus for the economic transformation programme, with the vision to ‘make the country a regional education hub’ through ‘increasing private sector participation’.

Norzaini suggested that a new model of private higher education institutions be explored, one that is based on the non-profit model with a greater focus on students and facilities rather than stakeholder returns, adding that successful models existed in the US and Korea.

“I don’t disapprove of the private education sector; what I’m saying is that education shouldn’t be seen as a commodity per se, instead we should strive for more of a win-win situation.”

The industry insider said that the industry needs to be consolidated, either through the market or through government intervention, and believes that the market is slowly sorting itself out. This is supported by analyst predictions.

“Right now there is huge competition in the education industry,” an education sector analyst with Kenanga Research said. “If this (growth in HEIs) continues, they are going to face profit margin problems.”

This may actually be a positive thing for potential students, the analyst added, as it would require private HEIs to lower fees, build their brands, specialise in their courses and offer better quality to attract students.