Tackling workload challenges in M’sian varsities

Sharing the workload with industry, balancing the workload among staff, and focusing more on students’ learning, can effectively reduce strain on overworked educators, says City University deputy vice-chancellor (Academic) Prof David Ngo Chek Ling.

Noting that educators in public universities (IPTA) and private institutions (IPTS) face different workload challenges, such as handling larger classes or more classes with fewer students, he said the increase in staff turnover in recent years has made the shortage of staff worse in Malaysian universities, especially in IPTS.

In Malaysia, there are 20 IPTA and 434 IPTS. Both types of universities have about the same number of students and staff, with an average ratio of 1:1, he said.

“In 2021, IPTA had 589,879 students and 30,380 academic staff, while IPTS had 517,580 students and 28,570 academic staff.

“Since IPTS have the same number of students and staff as IPTA but serve more institutions, it’s likely that IPTS have more programmes with fewer students in each,” he explained.

Prof Ngo proposed three measures to solve the issue of stressed and overworked lecturers in Malaysian varsities:

Tapping into industry resources

> Partners in industry Extended internships in the industry can help students apply theory to practise and gain working experience under joint industry-academia supervision. Through work-experience opportunities, students can receive direct supervision from employers and oversight from the university.

> Industry in classroom Involving professionals from industries as adjunct faculty or guest lecturers can enrich the curriculum with real-world insights. In the early years, Multimedia University offered programmes with opportunities for dual certification in the latest technologies from tech companies like CISCO and Microsoft, jointly conducted by certified trainers and academic staff.

> Industry on campus Co-locating industry and academia can foster collaborations and enable universities to benefit from corporate expertise, while companies gain access to research facilities and a skilled workforce.

At the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab at MIT, scientists from both institutions collaborate with industry partners to apply fundamental science to real-world applications, often involving PhD students interning with the Lab.

Staff exchanges among universities Establishing partnerships among local and global universities can facilitate staff exchanges and sabbaticals, enabling educators to share expertise and resources across institutions. This could result in a more balanced workload among academic staff.

By using resources from all its campuses worldwide to support academics, research and administration, academic staff can collaborate to deliver courses across all campuses using an online platform.

In a more complex example, institutional cooperation within the European Universities alliances allows students, doctoral candidates and staff to benefit from seamless mobility despite the intricate and varied systems.

If they can do it, anyone can, especially Malaysian universities that were established based on the same qualification framework.

Transforming education with digital learning

Establishing a virtual environment for distance learning, where content delivery processes are automated, enables academic staff to focus solely on monitoring learning.

Digital transformation can enhance speed and efficiency to expand its digital capacity and increase a varsity’s online enrolment.

When academia, industry and the government collaborate for a sustainable solution, only then can we alleviate the workload challenges faced by educators in Malaysian universities.