Najib has high ambitions for Malaysia and a region on the rise
The Prime Minister sees the development of top-quality universities as crucial to his country’s future and that of the whole of Asia. In an
exclusive interview for QS WorldClass SHOWCASE, he tells John O’Leary of his determination to restore the momentum behind plans
he initiated at the Education Ministry earlier in the decade.
Few of the driving forces behind the rise of Asian higher education enjoy
the power of Najib Razak. Having begun the modernisation of Malaysia’s
universities as Minister for Education, he now has the chance to see the
project through as Prime Minister.
During his five-year stint at the Education Ministry – which then
encompassed universities as well as schools – Najib set an international
agenda that was ahead of its time in many respects. Malaysian universities
were given greater autonomy and Asia’s first branch campuses were
welcomed into the country. His ambition – since echoed by counterparts
elsewhere – was to make Malaysia an education “hub” for the region.
Now leading the government, as his father once did, he is determined to
give that ambition fresh impetus and to help one or more of the country’s
universities to join Asia’s assault on the upper echelons of the world rankings.
He does not yet see the centre of academic power shifting eastwards, but
he is optimistic about the future of the region’s top institutions.
Relaxed in his Parliamentary office, he is knowledgeable about international
higher education and candid about the prospects for progress up the
rankings. “It will take time for us to get there,” he says. “We might have to
take some bold steps to short-circuit the process to climb up the ladder.”
In Malaysia’s case, as in a growing number of countries around the world,
that means trying to “pick winners” among the universities and provide
the necessary support to propel them up the rankings. Germany has its
€2.7bn Excellence Initiative, which includes enhanced funding for nine
universities; China is to do the same with its C9 universities; Malaysia has its
Apex programme.
Apex promises autonomy in finance, management, student selection,
the setting of tuition fees and appointment to leadership positions. Nine
universities sought the new status. So far, only Universiti Sains Malaysia
has been granted Apex status, but the University of Malaya, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia have also been given
the status of research universities, with extra funding associated with the
title. The three would be the front-runners to join the Apex club if the
government chose to expand the initiative.
Najib says: “It is not just about the Apex programme, but there can’t be equal
resources [for all universities] if we are going to compete internationally.
Any extra funding will be based on merit. We are injecting that culture into
the system more and more.”
The Prime Minister plainly feels that the steam has gone out of Malaysia’s
higher education drive in recent years. “As Education Minister, I pursued it
with a lot of zeal,” he says. “We established new universities, brought in more
foreign students and were ahead of other countries in the sense that people
hadn’t thought of having foreign universities with branch campuses.”
Nottingham, Monash, Curtin and Swinburne all opened up in Malaysia.
“But then there was a lull,” Najib says regretfully. “Things plateaued: there
were no new universities and the focus was not there in terms of Malaysia as
a hub. I hope now there will be a resurgence. There are efforts to resuscitate
that goal and ambition.”
The University of Newcastle upon Tyne is opening a branch campus and
others are interested. There has also been a thorough review of higher
education with new targets designed to give a clearer focus to Malaysian
universities. Higher education plays an important role in the ‘Ninth Malaysia
Plan’, an economic blueprint designed to boost Malaysia’s economic future.
The plan covers five main areas, one of which is “to raise the capacity for
knowledge and innovation and to nurture a first-class mentality”. One aim
is to have 60 scientists, researchers or engineers for every 10,000 working
Malaysians, for example. It is said that Malaysia currently has less than one
fifth of that number.
The overall aim is to make Malaysia a “centre of higher education excellence”
by 2020. There are ambitions to attract many more overseas students, with
the Ministry of Higher Education setting up promotion centres in China,
Dubai, Indonesia and Vietnam with this in mind. Regional student mobility
is a growing trend throughout the world, but particularly in Asia. As well as
setting out to take a bigger share of students from neighbouring countries,
Malaysia is well placed to be a natural choice for students from Islamic
countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Najib says: “The intention is to make a major transformation of our public
universities so that they become much more competitive. But it is a plan
that needs to be continued with some degree of enthusiasm and focus so
that there will be continuous improvement.”
Najib believes that successful universities are crucial to the development
of Asian economies, but he insists that this need not mean a utilitarian
approach to higher education. “Universities should follow altruistic objectives and carry out basic research, but we must ensure that they are
able to provide the right kind of quality manpower to achieve national
aspirations. We want young people to be imbued with the right kind of
skills and value systems. I don’t think we are talking about things that are
democratically opposed to each other.”
Like a number of Asian countries, Malaysia’s investment in education has
been considerable – 6% of GDP in 2008, although the lion’s share necessarily
went to schools. Najib says he is satisfied with the returns, but adds: “I would
like to see more value and less emphasis on bricks and mortar, more on the
intellectual capital of teaching and research. Employers still talk about skills
gaps. It seems that whilst we have the numbers, we do not have the right
kind of quality yet.”
The investment will continue as long as the Malaysian economy can support
it. Although the country tipped into recession in 2009, it had begun to
recover by the end of the year and the World Bank has forecast a return to
growth rates close to the 6% average that Malaysia was enjoying before
the global downturn.
The government’s policy will continue to include support for many of the
country’s best students to attend overseas universities to broaden their
experience. But Najib knows there must be other improvements if talent is
not to be lost to the country. “We must create a buzz to attract them back,”
he says. “Young people are very mobile nowadays – they are global citizens.
There is not enough cutting-edge research to excite the top brains.”
Najib sees Malaysian higher education moving away from its British
routes towards the American model. Although proud to be a Nottingham
graduate, his own daughter is at Georgetown University, in Washington. “I
would like education to be rather broad-based and flexible at first-degree
level,” he says. “I like the fact that the US curriculum is always flexible and
choices are made later on.”
But the Prime Minister’s aim is for a distinctively Malaysian system that can
compete on the world stage. “We have got to accept that we cannot be
exclusively Bahasa and English can be the main language of instruction
for particular universities. But we must not lose our identity. With the right
emphasis on quality, we can have both.”
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| The Honourable Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Hj Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia |
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| Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) is one of the country’s three research universities. It has
been selected as the national centre for gifted and talented children in collaboration with the
world-renowned John Hopkins University. Photo shows Prime Minister Najib viewing the master
plan of the centre, which is being built on UKM’s Bangi campus. |
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Then Deputy Prime Minister Najib visiting University of Malaya during its 100th anniversary
celebration in 2005. (Photo credit: University of Malaya) |
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