Zambry: The current funding model for universities will be unsustainable when the number of institutions grows beyond the existing 20.
Govt will ensure sustainable, equitable access to higher learning, says Zambry
RAISING varsity fees is among the measures being considered by the government to ensure financial sustainability in the country’s higher education system, says Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir.
The current funding model for universities will be unsustainable when the number of institutions grows beyond the existing 20, he added.
He noted that the government has been providing 70% of the required budget for each public varsity since 2017.
“Moving forward, we need to have a different model to manage our financial resources,” he said, adding that the topic of raising fees is “a little bit sensitive” but the government is looking into all possibilities, including the type of allocations for the management of universities.
Highlighting the complexities of implementing a one-size-fits-all policy, Zambry said this is due to Malaysia’s diverse income groups, comprising the T15, M40 and B40.
“If you simply go for cost analysis without looking at the benefit as well, issues might crop up at a later stage.
“And that’s one of the things that we are looking at.
“But we are going ahead with charging almost a percentage higher (in fees) for certain groups,” he said, underscoring the government’s commitment to ensuring equitable access to education, particularly for the B40 group, while exploring targeted fee increases for higher-income groups.
“At the same time, we do not want to impose difficulties in the future because the right and access to education must be maintained.
“We have to really look into the actual cost and the real income bracket of the T15 (community) because we cannot simply assume that a family with four or five children has an income of RM10,000 a month.
“The household income is not an individual’s income; all these factors must be looked into,” he said during a Higher Education talk and Q&A session with editors in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 20.
On Oct 27, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the government was looking into removing subsidies for only the top 10% of income earners.
This would entail changing the classification of high-income earners who are exempt from subsidies from T15 to T10.
Separately, Zambry said the Higher Education Ministry will look into incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) as one of the shifts of the upcoming Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint (MHEB) 2026-2035.
Introduced in 2015, the current blueprint will end next year.
He said while AI is not yet explicitly part of the MHEB 2026-2035, there is a clear intention to embed it across university faculties and curricula.
“In the next 10 years, AI will be an unavoidable element in the context of pedagogy and the curriculum.
“Existing computer science, and information and communication technology (ICT) faculties will all make AI part of their programmes,” he said.
On the importance of university rankings, Zambry said benchmarks to measure the country’s educational progress and competitiveness on the international stage are important.
He, however, cautioned against over-reliance on rankings while neglecting other aspects of a quality education system.
“The pressure of chasing rankings can lead us to compromise on the quality of education and result in practices like inflated journal submissions or junior researchers being pushed to publish prematurely.
“Rankings can rise and fall over time, but what truly matters is how a university establishes itself in specialised areas that gain international prominence.
“For example, many may not be aware that at Universiti Putra Malaysia, new fields are being introduced at the global level, such as crypto and quantum computing, which is a new area that goes beyond blockchain technology,” he said.
On graduate employability, Zambry said the ministry will need to work closely with the Human Resources Ministry, the Economy Ministry, and the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry to prevent graduates from taking jobs for which they are overqualified or not suited.
This collaborative approach, he said, aims to create a specific forecast based on market needs, including prospects for the next five years, to prevent job mismatches from happening.
