106 Mukherjee, Singh, Fernandez-Chung and Marimuthu
quality science and technology graduates and academic staff remain
insufficient; and high-level management personnel continue to be appointed
on a non-competitive basis.
In short, policymakers need to determine if they are to move along a
well-trodden linear path or whether they take advantage of the potential
exponential growth of a knowledge economy which a technology-based
education environment can bring. Fortunately, there are signs that the
health of the education system as a whole, and of higher education in
particular, has received focused attention from Malaysian policymakers
in the last few years. Such attention may be seen in critical areas such
as supporting research and innovation through better funding, offering
incentives to attract high-performing Malaysians back from their current
positions in developed economies, and placing more emphases on planning
and evaluation.
Strategic Planning
Malaysia’s strategies to increase access to higher education have been
successful: every group including ethnic communities, women, and those
from rural areas shows positive increases in higher education participation.
In some ways the sector has become a victim of its own success which is
most visible in the setting of ever-increasing numerical targets. The public
announcement of targets, implications for which require thorough study,
has enormous consequences for students as well as HEIs, influencing
implementation strategies and processes, and above all, quality. Decisions
on numbers could benefit from more rigour and caution as seen in the
recent case of medical graduates and production of PhD target figures.
Additionally, emphasizing improved articulation of inputs at various levels,
rather than considering them individually, such as teaching of English in
tandem with advances in technology-based studies, would help move the
system closer towards its goal of building a globally directed knowledge
economy.
Implementing Development Policies
Among recent published declarations of development policy have been the
New Economic Model and the Bumiputra Economic Empowerment Plan.
The most recent are the Education Blueprints concerned with improving