PETALING JAYA: Internationalisation should not be used as a shortcut to global recognition by local universities if it comes at the expense of bright local students, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong.
The MCA president said it was perplexing to see Universiti Malaya (UM) vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Seri Dr Noor Azuan Abu Osman arguing that the admission of foreign students can contribute to rankings and research visibility.
“This argument completely evades the central and most important issue, which is the steady erosion of opportunities for local students through the expansion of full-paying places at the expense of subsidised UPU slots,” said Dr Wee in a Facebook post on Monday (Sept 22).
Dr Wee said Noor Azuan’s remarks glossed over the concerns of Malaysian families without addressing demands and questions by the public over the current Higher Education Ministry’s policies for local university admissions.
“The VC (vice-chancellor) relied on broad generalisation but failed to disclose critical data,” he added.
Noor Azuan, in an opinion piece published by Bernama on Monday, had said the government’s policy has always been that international enrolment does not affect the intake of local students.
Noor Azuan had said international students generally entered through separate international channels that were not counted against UPU spots.
According to Noor Azuan, the surge in foreign enrolments largely came from an expanding spectrum of postgraduate programmes and not subsidised places for local students.
Dr Wee said that during the Parliament session in August, he already requested the Higher Education Ministry for detailed figures on student admissions, but he was only provided with a Parliamentary written reply on general figures without further details on annual intakes.
“Therefore, once again, I call on UM and the Higher Education Ministry to publish year by year from 2018 to 2025, the breakdown between full-paying local students and subsidised local students, according to their qualifications used for admissions.
“Only then can Malaysians see the truth, that thousands of deserving students are being coerced into commercial ‘direct intake’ programmes.
“This is not a matter of foreign students displacing locals, but of local UPU places being ‘stolen’ and sold to Malaysians themselves at unaffordable rates,” said Dr Wee.
Dr Wee also said it was misleading for the Higher Education Department to claim that all 1,255 STPM students with 4.0 CGPAs secured spots in local universities.
“Securing ‘a place’ for these perfect-scoring STPM graduates, who are the literal definition of crème de la crème of our talents, is not the same as being offered one’s course of choice, which shouldn't even be an issue considering the number of places made available to full-fee paying locals & foreigners,” he added.
Dr Wee said the issue now was that there were students from B40 and M40 families with children scoring perfect results but faced RM500,000 tuition fees for medical degrees, simply because subsidised slots were withheld for commercial-rate paying students.
“That is systemic discrimination and no amount of rhetoric on ‘holistic meritocracy’ can justify it,” he added.
One example, said Dr Wee, is the Higher Education Ministry’s confirmation that only 85 places are offered through UPU in UM’s Bachelor of Accounting programme.
He said that UM’s own records showed that roughly 160 graduates were produced annually.
“This means that almost 47% of intake is channelled through commercial ‘direct intake’ routes, even if some of them are Malaysians.
“The issue here is clear as subsidised UPU seats are being restricted while local universities expand their commercial channels to full-paying students,” he said.
Dr Wee said that from UM’s own Open Day from Sept 20 to 21, close to 75 places were offered for the law degree course under UM’s direct intake channel Satu, which was 10 times the tuition fees compared to subsidised fees under UPU.
“This reflects a similar reality for other critical courses in UM, where the difference in fees between subsidised UPU intake vs SATU channel ranges from 10-30 times.
“Let us be clear that internationalisation should never come at the cost of Malaysian students’ dreams,” he said.
Dr Wee said the government must ensure full transparency in admissions, mandate public disclosure of intake figures for subsidised vs full-paying local students and stop public universities from commercialising their national mandate.
“Without this, talk of ‘putting Malaysians first’ will remain hollow words,” added Dr Wee.
In the opinion piece, Noor Azuan had also said that in the 2025 cycle, 78,800 students or 72% of 109,000 applicants secured placements in local universities through UPU.
