Private universities and colleges play a vital role in meeting the demands of higher education. Were it not for the free development of the sector in the last quarter of the last century, the country would have faced serious problems in meeting the manpower needs of a country transiting from an essentially agricultural economy to an industrial one. Today, there are about 80 universities and universities in the private sector and they host more than 50% of the post-secondary students in the country. The private education private sector is a highly regulated terrain but supporters of the tight regulation argue that the control by the Ministry of Higher Education and the Malaysian Quality Agency (MQA) ensure quality and standards and keep a check on rogue players in the industry.
Although accreditation of higher education programs is not subject to mandatory accreditation, the Ministry's approval of courses, which is mandatory requires all courses to be accredited by MQA.
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 is 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 program, 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.
