Restoration of the Education System After a Previous Interruption – World War II

 “The whole educational system received a serious set-back as a result of the occupation by the Japanese. For almost four years of enemy occupation schooling declined to a very low level, both in quantity and quality, and institutions of higher education ceased to function. A formidable task of rehabilitation has faced the educational authorities since the territory was liberated in September, 1945, and we wish to record our admiration both of the achievements of the authorities and of the zeal of the pupils and students in renewing their studies.

Damage to school buildings was not on a large scale, but many of them were requisitioned by the services and there were long delays before they were available for school use. There have been very serious losses of furniture, equipment and books, but, in spite of all these difficulties, the schools have been brought into operation with commendable speed; within a few months of liberation schools in the Malayan Union had exceeded their 1941 enrolment figures, and in Singapore enrolment was doubled in the course of 1946. The problem of accommodation, already pressing in 1941, has thus become acute, for it has been necessary to provide for an accumulation of over-age pupils, whose schooling was interrupted by the Japanese occupation, and there is therefore an abnormal increase in enrolment. The pressure of pupils is so great that many English schools are compelled to work in two shifts daily. The difficulties have been greatly increased by the depletion of staff, as a result of death, retirement and change of employment; the wastage is particularly severe in European officers. Of other problems mention may be made of the shortage of transport, which affects everyone alike, whether inspectors, teachers or pupils. Nevertheless, education in the schools has made a fine recovery and it is noteworthy that it was possible to hold the School Certificate Examination in December, 1946. For some little time to come, rehabilitation will remain the foremost task of the education authorities, and this must govern the speed with which developments can move.”

From the REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN MALAYA (1948)

Where Have All the Doctors Gone?

In a  previous post (The Doctors’ Dilemma) we wrote about how the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) handling of the employment of young doctors might alienate those doctors from developing a commitment to their vocation. The focus of that piece was what appeared to be apparent discrimination of doctors from private medical schools in Malaysia. Recent reports of doctors resigning from the medical service suggest that the disaffection may not be limited only to young doctors but may have deeper extensions that could impinge on the government’s ability to meet its public health responsibilities in the future. There is already talk of a strike by doctors.

The flight of the doctors was disclosed by the top echelon of the ministry at a news conference that was reported in the news portal Malaysiakini (https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/584259.) on 23 July 2021. The Selangor Health Director revealed that since January this year, 163 medical officers had resigned from the service. But that was not all. As if to allay any concerns over the alarming figures of doctors exiting the service, the Health Ministry secretary-general, who was also present at the news conference, explained that the resignations reported were in line with those of previous years. According to him, nine hundred medical officers had resigned from the service from 2014 to 2020.

The alarming figures of doctors quitting the public service require a more carefully studied response than the flippant and cynical reasons offered by the Selangor Health Director. The reasons he advanced – of better pastures in photography and selling computers, inheriting family clinics and a loss of interest in medicine – makes it a problem of doctors exercising their choices without attributing any responsibility to the Ministry. Does the ministry conduct an exit interview of doctors leaving? Are there discernible patterns in the age and other profiles of those leaving? Has there been a study of the management of the service, especially the rotation schedule? Has the ministry acted to develop intervention strategies to curtail the trends? The problem most probably lies with the service and not those leaving. Statements that have gone viral in the social networks show deep and entrenched problems in the service which alludes to incompetence and racist decisions. Instead of making glib statements about inheriting family clinics, those paid to manage the system must start offering solutions to a problem that threatens the health service.

How doctors are treated by the medical service will have important ramifications on the supply of doctors to meet national needs. Students’ choice in selecting a career in medicine will be adversely affected if the news trickles down to them of the shabby way doctors are treated by the government. The employers of doctors must be mindful that ultimately it is the people who make the sacrifices to take up vocations such as medicine. These social processes cannot be nurtured through petty strategies that are currently employed. The ministry’s current placid attitude and reactions to the exit of doctors are probably encouraged by seeing the steady and growing number of doctors entering the service each year. If the current stewards of the medical service do not wake up to the duties entrusted to them, their legacy to their successors in the service will be despair. 

The Doctors’ Dilemma

 

The ineptitude in the handling of the employment of young doctors in the medical service is mind-boggling. The healthcare system is collapsing in the face of the pandemic. Healthcare workers are being strained to the limit of their capacity. The daily count of infections and deaths does not put a number on the efforts of these valiant workers. Now, eighteen months into the pandemic, there is still no visible signs of when the pandemic will be brought under control. Instead, a danger looms of the system itself failing. Against this background, instead of treating the additional numbers of qualified doctors as a boon to the health system and the nation as a whole, decision-makers are embroiled in an unnecessary controversy about the tenure of these young doctors and their future careers. If matters are not quickly resolved the situation would alienate a whole generation of doctors and stifle their enthusiasm and motivations.

This country needs more doctors regardless of the doctor to population figure standing at 1:454 (2020). With a dispersed population and many living in rural areas, the WHO ideal of 1:400 does not say anything about whether public healthcare reaches those in remote and fringe areas. The ideal figures also say nothing about how these ‘ideal’ figures will cater for extraordinary situations like those created by a pandemic like that being experienced now. Total Covid-19 cases from March last year exceed 900 thousand. New positive cases reported daily exceed 10 thousand patients. The system is under great strain, not least because of the shortage of doctors. A sufficient number of skilled and motivated health workers is critical to the performance of any health system, particularly now in the COVID‑19 pandemic. Faced with similar situations, other countries, including OECD countries, have cut the bureaucratic red tape to press doctors who are outside formal systems into service to fight the pandemic.

Unfortunately, very often in this country, official decisions on important social matters as those now concerning the employment of doctors in the public service are often influenced by issues of race, religion, and political expedience. In the present case, an additional, widely held reason preventing a rational decision is that the doctors graduated from private universities. This is not based on the quality of their education but simply that they are the products of ‘money-making’ enterprises. For that reason alone, it is being proposed by some that the numbers qualifying from private institutions must be reduced in the future to prevent similar future predicaments. This is an untenable argument which, the sooner it is put to rest the better.

Private universities, including those with medical schools are the product of an evolution that was shaped by the unfulfilled demand for higher education. A large section of our population, at a critical moment in their lives, would not have had the opportunities for further education after school but for the offerings of private colleges. From around the 1980s, long before the law allowed the creation of private universities, private colleges in this country changed the very nature of higher education as traditionally defined to make it more accessible to learners. The innovations private colleges introduced (too many to repeat in this article), separated the substance of higher education from the physical trappings of the university and allowed a university-level education to be delivered outside the lecture rooms and even outside the country of its location. What followed was a historical transformation that democratized higher education and brought it within the reach of our school-leaving youth even as their growing numbers found them no place in local public institutions.

The private sector of higher education in this country must be respected for its contribution to higher education. Many of the owners of these private institutions are there not just to make money. They set up colleges and universities out of a commitment to providing education and with philanthropic motives. The development of the private sector of higher education, which now hosts more than half the tertiary education population in this country, no doubt, also played an important role in stilling potential social disquiet that would have arisen because of the unmet demand for higher education. Reviewing the sector in 2008, the EPU report entitled, Strengthening Private Education Services in Malaysia, 2009, described the private education landscape then as;

‘. . . a thriving sector widely recognized in international academic circles as one of the most innovative and progressive in the region. Education experts and investors consulted during the course of this project have highlighted Malaysia as one of the most “open” regimes and more “attractive” markets in Asia. Among its achievements are;

Split-degrees and international transfer programs, particularly the proliferation of ‘twinning’ programs with premier international institutions are often heralded as some of the innovations introduced by the private education entrepreneurs; Malaysia is the 10th largest exporter of education, catering to 80,000 foreign students or 2% of the global market share.

Most of the achievements reported by EPU were realized before the passing of the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act in 1996 (Act 555). The far-reaching policy changes implemented by the Act set the pace for the next big leap in the development of the private sector. The Act legitimized private education and assigned it an equal role with that of public institutions. It allowed, for the first time in the country’s history, for private universities to be established. The significance of that move was the government’s relinquishment of its long-held monopoly over universities. Because of this bold step and other reasons, Act 555 radically altered the landscape of higher education. The provisions on private universities also allowed foreign universities to set up branch campuses in this country. As a result of these changes the private sector of higher education today is so diverse that it represents all the main systems of the English-speaking world. The same factors that attracted foreign universities also attracted foreign students in large numbers into local universities and colleges. The stimulus for these radical developments was the presence in 1996 of a mature, locally developed, private higher education system that was recognized internationally. It was a system that was well prepared to build on the opportunities created by Act 555.

The private sector of higher education is subject to tight control by different regulatory authorities established by Act 555 and other legislation. An important part of the regulatory system is the accreditation of the courses which is by statute vested in an independent agency – the Malaysian Accreditation Agency (MQA). Under the MQA Act, medical and other professional qualifications can only be accredited with the approval of the related professional body. In fact, the relevant provisions of the MQA Act 2007 gives the MMA and the medical profession a greater say on accreditation than the Agency itself.

Many of the doctors at the heart of the present controversy would be graduates of the private medical schools established under the regime of Act 555. The predicament they face is not of their making but that of a failure by the Health Ministry to anticipate the increased output of doctors from the private sector. The doctors from private medical schools are entitled to the same treatment as their counterparts from public medical schools. Their absorption into the medical health service on traditionally established terms should not be delayed any further.

One final point. The first medical school in this country, the King Edward VII College of Medicine was established in 1905 only because of the persistence and funding provided by philanthropic businessmen of that era. Malaysia’s first university, Universiti Malaya now claims its ancestry to that institution.

The Predicament of Students Stranded Without Accreditation

 

The problem first reported more than two months ago about students from a university being stranded without accredited qualifications is still festering with no real solutions offered. No one in authority seems to realize the urgent need to relieve the hardships caused to the students involved. Typically, no official from any of the relevant ministries and agencies have stepped forward to help the students concerned. These students would have chosen to study in Malaysia not least because of official assurances given about the reliability of our higher education system on the internet and elsewhere. See, for example, educationmalaysia.gov., which is the official portal extolling Malaysian Higher Education to the world.

This issue over accreditation is a debacle that would not have happened if government regulators and owners of private universities understood better their responsibilities to students. Great sacrifices are made by parents and students in time and money to receive a university-level education. There are also the other costs that tend to be ignored - social and emotional, especially when students travel from afar from their home countries to study in Malaysia. They come here because of the promises made by our government and our higher education institutions. There is a moral obligation that neither of these parties has so far responded to.

The reasons for the students’ predicament lie first on those who manage the institution involved, and secondly, on badly drafted laws that govern the approval and accreditation of courses offered by private universities and colleges. Nevertheless, given the enormity of the problem, regulators cannot sit back as spectators hoping for things to resolve themselves. There are means available to them to break the present impasse and they must take them to do so immediately.

Approval of courses conducted in private universities and colleges are regulated by the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996 (Act 555). Private Institutions are prohibited from conducting a course without the prior approval of the Registrar General of Private Higher Education, a position created by Act 555. Not complying with the approval requirements will subject institutions to a fine of up to RM 200,000 and a prison term of 2 years.

The procedure that is now adopted by the Ministry of Higher Education is that institutions wishing to conduct a new course must submit the course for evaluation by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency  (MQA). The MQA is an independent body that is not beholden to the MOHE. The MQA’s standard procedure is to issue a provisional accreditation certificate to the new course if it complies with the Malaysian Qualifications Framework and MQA’s guidelines on programme approval. Once provisional accreditation is given, the Registrar General of MOHE will as a matter of course, approve the course to be conducted by the applicant institution. The institution then proceeds to recruit students into the course collecting fees and other dues from them. Given the present laws and procedures, the students have no means to realise the danger looming that the course they have paid for may not be accredited. A course with provisional accreditation will only be assessed for full accreditation when the first cohort of students in the course progress to the final year. If the institution fails to secure full accreditation for the course, the worst of the consequences of that failure falls on the students. They realize too late that the course they studied and paid fees for is unaccredited by the only accrediting authority in the country. Living expenditures incurred in the process are lost. Scholarships are lost. Time is lost and the employment of the student delayed. Authorities such as foreign governments, embassies, and high commissions will not validate their qualifications which is an important requirement for foreign students. The MOHE is likely to withdraw the approval of the course paying no attention to the repercussion on students.

The underlying reason for all this is that penalties imposed by the laws that are passed to protect students’ interests are directed at the courses that flout the laws. The courses lose their academic value because of the laws. The students are left without any protection. A course that had secured the approval of the MOHE and which assured students of its standing is suddenly found to be worthless and unrecognized.

This is a situation that requires official intervention. Students registering for a course offered by a legally established institution cannot be forced to gamble with the prospect of the course being accredited. They are only required to work hard to fulfill the academic requirements of the course that they have paid for. Most urgently, the officials must resolve the students’ predicament and return to them the qualification they had contracted for. Once that is done, they must act against the institution concerned for any breach of the laws and finally, proceed to alter the laws as they now stand.

The students concerned may be facing a situation where the provisional accreditation has been nullified or withdrawn. Alternatively, the situation may be that the institution concerned failed to obtain full accreditation. Worse, they may have registered for a course that unknown to them was not even approved by the MOHE. All three situations leave no recourse for students to rectify the problem, and it is grossly unfair that those who were intended to be protected by the laws are the victims of those same laws. Neither legislation - Act 555 dealing with the approval of courses nor the MQA Act 2007 regulating the accreditation processes - protect the interests of students when institutions flout the laws.

Accreditation is only valid from the date it is given by the MQA, which means that students who have completed their course may still be left with an unaccredited programme, even if the course is accredited in the future. The quickest way to deal with the students’ predicament is to look closely at the exemption powers given to the minister by Act 555 and the MQA Act 2007, or even more expeditiously through a resolution of the MQA Council. If the authorities are not willing to take this step, the only other way to resolve the issue is through legislation, which drastic step, it is suggested,  may not be required in this case. The problem is not intractable. The interests of students are paramount. The reputation of the country as an educational hub must be protected.

Academics under Covid Fatigue

 

By the Espact Team

I write this in admiration, respect, and on behalf of my many friends who are still actively carrying out their duties in private universities and colleges. They have worked against a confusing background of policies made and not made and policies made only to be changed. My friends and others have worked hard to discharge their contractual obligations deeply aware of their moral obligations to their students. During these past 18 months, they have worked, against the uncertain official policies mentioned earlier and the ambivalent responses from their institutions. They are all affected by fatigue created as much by the additional and different kinds of work they are required to produce in these difficult times, as by the confusion shown by officials in handling the current situation. The recurring complaints include a lack of institutional understanding of online processes and flowing from that, an absence of any useful guidelines issued to staff or students about the academic expectations in the new forum. General directions are issued to the academics to go online without anyone monitoring the impact of the online mode of instruction on teachers or students. Nor are there policies developed in the institution to align teaching and assessments in the online or an investigation of either process. There is no mitigation of the traditional chores of academics, but only the addition of new tasks in the new environment. For example, teachers are expected to ‘mark’ papers online, but no adjustments are made to the modes of assessment or time given to the staff to complete the marking. Regular faculty meetings to discuss the difficulties, if they had been held over the last 18 months would have helped, some of them say, but there have only been directions to comply without caring to examine the difficulties of compliance.

It has not helped that many institutions are in the dark about handling the situation. No one, to my knowledge, has organized any course to help staff cope with the current situation. Nor has there been any formal discussion on how the future of higher education is to be handled. The MOHE and the MQA must take responsibility for these processes but both agencies have been sitting on their hands. Institutions, hoping for more effective guidance from them have failed to receive any. Even pleas for help made to individuals have also brought little results.

I think we must face the prospect that the processes of higher education that we have grown up with are no longer sustainable in an environment that has been violently altered by the pandemic. In law, the concept of force majeure is a disruptive force that is unforeseen that fundamentally alters the obligations of parties under a contract. What was agreed to be done in a particular manner based on certain assumptions can no longer be done in that agreed manner because of unforeseen disruptions of those assumptions. When the Suez Canal was closed in the 1950s because of hostilities along the canal, shippers’ obligation to deliver cargo within a stipulated time estimated on the assumption that carriage will be through the canal, could no longer hold. Nevertheless, the carriage had to be completed, even if it meant that the carriers would have to take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope.

Higher education regulators and providers must take a different route in delivering higher education. However, unlike the shippers in the Suez Canal situation, the hope for higher education may not lie in a longer route but a shorter one. This is a time to rethink higher education by jettisoning the trash, the debris, the bran, and the banter of courses that serve no purpose in education at the higher level. Maintain the ballast but review the cargo. It is time to reassess the number of subjects that are forced down the gullets of students and the mandated duration of the certificate, diploma, and degree courses. The suspensions forced on us by the pandemic give us the respite to think through the future. The city of Wuhan in China built a makeshift emergency hospital to treat patients infected with the coronavirus in just 10 days. Makeshift must not be regarded as a derogatory term in times like this.

We have no choice because, if as experts say the pandemic will be with us in different degrees for at least another five years, the future we must worry about is already with us. More productive and purposeful engagement between regulators, institutions, staff, and students must start now.