Malaysia’s public universities are headed for troubled waters and it is unclear whether our policymakers are even on the alert. Ranking universities is a debatable business, but I bring it up here because it is the ultimate performance benchmark, and recent developments underscored the detachment of officialdom from the institutions’ woes.

Universiti Malaya’s rise to No 133 on the QS World University Ranking score sheet in 2016, its best position ever, was greeted on the campus with surprise, nonchalance and despair. The sentiments are distinct from the previous years. When UM inched up the rankings, from 156 in 2012 to 146 in 2015, these small and steady gains brought relief. A bigger jump from 167 in 2011 to 156 in 2012 instilled a sense of accomplishment.

At one stage, research grants were quite abundant, there was support for internationalisation, and for recruiting and retaining talent. Universities were given support and we seemed to be doing things better, and improvements in the rankings made sense.

Then came the funding cuts. Federal budget allocations for universities were slashed 12% in 2015, 15% in 2016, and 19% in 2017. UM took the biggest hit last year, when it suffered a 27% shortfall from the previous year. This defunding spree, coinciding with a major leap in the rankings, might have perhaps emboldened further budgetary cuts.

The government will be perilously mistaken to do so. Continual aggressive defunding brings three significant deficits to Malaysia’s public universities.

First, a personnel deficit. Severe fund-slashing compels severe cost-cutting, and shock therapy induces desperate measures. Contract staff are one of the first on the chopping block because the funds for this specific category of employees have dried up. Many contracts have not been renewed, and they are not substituted with allocations for part-time instructors or new recruits. Financial dispensability, however, does not equate with importance to core activity and service. Numerous academic departments count on contract academic staff to teach core courses and produce research and publications.

As contract staff are ushered out, the same workload gets distributed among the remaining staff, increasing their burden and contributing to the second deficit — a drop in morale. Academics will likely see the burdens increased, while concerns over funding cuts are typically dismissed by invoking the seemingly non-negotiable policy of reducing public subsidisation of university expenditure. The Higher Education Blueprint 2015-2025 outlined a new funding formula, with performance-based allocations and per student funding as the new features. This formula is to be rolled out on a “gradual” basis.

“Performance funding” is especially contentious. If fixated on numbers and not adequately anchored in the public interest and long-term objectives, as seems to be the case, there is every potential for the system to be gamed, for example, by lowering academic rigour to boost completion rates and student satisfaction, or pursuing quantity over quality of research. Given these complexities, one would expect the policy to be agonisingly deliberated, and gradual and systematic if implemented.

But UM and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia have seen huge funding cuts of 27% and 31% for 2016 and 2017 respectively. Why? Enrolments have not fallen precipitously, nor have the universities massively scaled down operations. Have they performed so badly? The lack of transparency in making funding cuts and the depletion in research grants are disconcerting, and cannot be good for the morale of the academic community.

Some good initiatives risk being derailed. UM rolled out an initiative to allow academics to play to their relative interests and strengths by focusing on research or teaching. But in the hasty pursuit of extracting more output from fewer resources, the research targets have been made frighteningly difficult to hit.

What about the next generation of academics? There is so much rhetoric about developing talent and making reference to the Higher Education Talent Roadmap, but the Malaysian approach diverges from the practices in recognised institutions. Globally leading universities excel by attracting talent, then trusting them — through their dynamism, creativity and self-motivation — to research, teach and contribute to public knowledge with little monitoring.

Malaysian universities are increasingly inclined to do the opposite: micromanaging rewards for formulaic outcomes, distrusting the industry and capability of staff, monitoring for compliance and resisting change. All this seriously risk losing such talents to institutions that safeguard trust, autonomy and freedom.

This brings us to the third deficit that can grow as public financing shrinks — our international profile. Our public universities, having grown in international stature, could see these gains reversed. The universities are subject to the public services employment scheme, including the rule that non-citizens cannot be hired on a permanent basis. All non-Malaysian academics are mostly on short-term contracts. If more contracts are not renewed, our profile will be less international.

Will Malaysia’s public higher learning institutions, especially research universities, become more domestic and less global? That might happen, and if so, our presence on the world academic stage will fade. A specific recruitment scheme for public universities and promoting secure employment of international academic staff is worth considering.

The presumption that rebalancing university funding sources and reducing government subsidy necessitates budget cuts needs to be debunked. This can be done by maintaining federal allocations, while facilitating growth in other sources. But now both the share of government subsidies and the overall expenditure of universities are falling — why?

Suppose a university spends RM100 million and receives RM90 million from the government in line with the current 90% subsidisation rate. If the government share declines to 70%, then in 10 years —a “gradual” rollout as the education blueprint stipulates — the government’s contribution would amount to RM84 million, or basically holding steady.

Will the government assess the impact of the funding cuts and reconsider its stand? This will take courage, since reducing public funding has been high on the higher education agenda for a decade, and the government has been defending the deep cuts apparently to show its resolve.

But at the rate we are cutting funds, it will be impossible to avoid deficits in personnel, morale and international profile.

Dr Lee Hwok Aun is visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

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