(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): Dr Khaw Lake Tee and Dr Lim Koon Ong’s appointment to the new post of Deputy Vice-Chancellor Of UM and USM respectively, that was specially created for non-Malay academics does not remedy the government’s failure of appointing any non-Malay Vice-Chancellors to the 17 public universities in Malaysia. To avoid the public having the impression that there is only one Deputy Vice-Chancellor of UM and USM and which is given to a non-Malay, a check at the websites of UM and USM proves otherwise.

There are already three Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s for both USM and UM and all are Malay academics who remain unchanged in their posts. The 3 Deputy Vice-Chancellor for UM are Associate Professor Dr. Azarae Hj Idris, Professor Dato' Dr. Mohd. Amin Jalaludin and Professor Dr. Muhamad Rasat b. Muhamad. The three Deputy Vice-Chancellors of USM are Profesor Madya Omar Osman, Profesor Dato' Rosihan M. Ali and Profesor Dato' Muhamad Idiris Saleh. 

In fact if we look at the top management of UM at its websites, there are 9 persons. Only one in UM is a non-bumi – the newly appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dr Khaw. Clearly appointments to top positions to our top public universities are still racially-slanted and not based on globally accepted best practices or on best academic performers. 

The National Higher Education Plan had proposed the creation of an additional deputy vice-Chancellor post in public universities which would be filled in by a non-bumiputra. Five universities have appointed a fourth deputy vice-Chancellor and apart from Universiti Teknologi Mara which will still appoint a Malay, the other four will appoint non-bumis, namely UM, USM, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). 

The Deputy VC’s Offices play key roles in advancing the level and quality of education and services in universities by helping and supporting the students and staff to fulfill their potential and exceed their expectations. DAP can not see how these objectives of achieving excellence can be attained if academics are not appointed by merit or performance but by extraneous factors of race, religion or even political connections.  

There are several notable and prominent Malay academics who have been forced into “exile” in foreign universities because they were denied promotion as they were not politically well-connected or because they refused to submit to UMNO’s dominance in public universities by subscribing to the Akujanji. No wonder the standards of our public universities have deteriorated at an alarming accelerated rate. 

Malaysia has currently  17 public universities, 11 private universities, 4 foreign university branch campuses, 3 local private university branch campuses, 2 private university colleges and 516 private colleges/institutes of non-university status - but we do not have a single world-class university when we should have several by our global development status. The latest Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) did not have a single Malaysian university in the top 100 best universities in the world. THES had placed Malaysia’s UKM is at No. 185, UM at 192, USM at 277 and UPM at 292.   

There are only 13 universities are from the Asian countries of China (2), Japan (3), Singapore(2), Hong Kong(3), India(2) and South Korea(1). The top Asian university is Beijing University which is No. 14 world-wide. Does these top universities practices discrimination or make appointments based on any other considerations other than merit or performance? 

Appointing a non-Malay to the newly created post of Deputy Vice-Chancellor is a mere political device to respond to the unhappiness of non-Malays in preparation of the coming general elections and will not improve the standards or help us attain standards of excellence in our public universities. What is required is appointment to all positions in public universities, including Vice-Chancellor based on merit and performance.  Anything less will make the National Higher Education Plan an exercise in futility regardless of how Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Ong Tee Keat packages and justifies the appointment of a non-Malay as the fourth Deputy Vice-Chancellor.