The aims of tertiary education

Education is the great equaliser of the human condition. It can, and should be, but do Malaysian universities offer this step up in life to all?

A CREATIVE ferment characterises the national higher education scene in Malaysia. There is a lively debate about what tertiary education is for and how its aims ought to be achieved.

All universities walk the tightrope between competing and conflicting demands. Priorities vary from age to age and from university to university, but what is certain is the multiplicity of the aims of education.

I would like to share my personal reflections on the aims that these citadels of learning should embrace.

Heritage of knowledge: A university is a storehouse of the knowledge and wisdom of the past. It is a mirror of humanity’s great heritage. It studies the momentous achievements and failures of the past to understand the present and prepare for the future.

Promoting self-education: A university promotes an adventure of ideas. The whole object of education is to develop the mind, not to constrain it; to promote creative exploration and willingness to challenge accepted beliefs.

The student should be free to believe that nothing is right just because it was, or is, or is going to be.

The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, rather than what to think. As American intellectual Noam Chomsky put it, the purpose of education should be to help people determine how to learn on their own.

Regrettably, much of education is ideologically encapsulated. Most syllabi and methods of instruction and evaluation strangle curiosity and inquiry. Many colleges have become places “where pebbles are polished and diamonds dimmed”. The primary aim of public education even at the tertiary level seems to be to indoctrinate and capture youth into conformity.

Career training: A university is a place for learning skills for the job market and professions. Most curricula show awareness of the needs of the professions and industries. Many universities also cultivate varsity-industry synergy. This career training aim has today become the ultimate end or goal of university life.

No one will disagree that it is important, but it needs to be submitted that the career training and industry-varsity synergy role should not displace the other functions and ideals which should characterise a citadel of learning.

Promoting enterprise: It is likely that universities of the future will have to develop business models and run like businesses even though they are not business entities.

Universities should be involved in the nation’s economic development. In the age to come, the new role of the university may be as an export-revenue earner and leader in applied research. Through research and innovation, the university may contribute to the nation’s economic and industrial development.

Research: A university is a place where new knowledge is generated through responsible and relevant research. In any reputable university, the horizons of knowledge must be pushed forward; new paths must be blazed; scholars must seek to go where no one has gone before.

A university should incubate a culture of research. A university should be a laboratory for testing out a new vision of the future.

A university cannot become an acclaimed university unless it possesses a large number of scholars who are the voice of their professions and who, in the words of Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, Rector of International Islamic University Malaysia, not only reflect the light produced by others (knowledge application) but are in their own right a source of new illumination for the world (knowledge generation).

A good part of the research should be “applied” research to suggest solutions to the burning issues of the times – be it the impending environmental catastrophe, poverty, injustice or marginalisation.

To this end, all universities now give institutional and financial support for research. They train staff and students in research methodology. This is commendable.

However, the emphasis on research must not be at the expense of teaching. Regrettably, the new-found emphasis on post-graduate research is leading to a number of adverse tendencies.

For one thing, teaching is being neglected. Some senior academicians are doing insufficient or even no teaching. They are busy carrying bulky research portfolios. Some senior educators shun introductory and preparatory courses.

On principles of justice, the best facilities and talents should be reserved for the weakest students. Even if we moderate this principle, this columnist believes that the senior-most lecturers must be prescribed at least a few hours with the youngest, rawest students. This will aid the transformation of minds.

Committed teachers are being bypassed in tenure and promotions in comparison with entrepreneurial researchers.

Instead of singling out and supporting good researchers wherever they are found, the Malaysian approach is to anoint some universities with the status of “Research University” and shower them with special grants. Innovators in non-research universities are thereby prejudiced.

I believe that the division of universities into research and comprehensive universities must be re-examined. We should support good researchers and single out high-performing centres and units no matter where they are found.

In a research-centric atmosphere, another danger to guard against is the receipt of industrial sponsorships that lead to the sacrifice of academic integrity and the unethical practice of rigging and supporting findings favourable to the sponsors.

One more problem is that some of the research is more show than substance. It is primarily for fulfilling KPIs or for obtaining promotion. It has no utility or no impact on alleviating the problems of society. There is a definite gap between the production of knowledge and its use in policy, practice and solutions for development-related problems.

Many observers are sceptical about how much value-for-money universities are receiving from their research grants. We need to tighten scrutiny.

Another related issue is that the government often shows no inclination to pay attention to research findings.

Character along with career: A university’s role is to build character as well as careers. However, character cannot be built by the mere imparting of religious or moral education.

Religion and morality must be lived. They have to be practised in our interaction with our family, neighbourhood and society. A university with holistic aims must seek to inculcate in its students not only religious and moral perspectives, but also a social conscience and a social perspective.

Town and gown relationships: Besides being profession-oriented, the university should be people-oriented. The curriculum should be so devised that staff and students are involved in the amelioration of the problems of society and in supervised social service roles including adult education; free legal, medical and technical aid; participation in well-thought-out schemes for eradicating poverty; providing of fresh water, flood and storm control; giving protection from disease; and building of facilities for recreation.

All these must be linked with environmental sustainability. The existing internship or practical training programmes, meant primarily for skill development (and not for inculcating a social conscience and a social perspective), must be supplemented with (the now-disbanded) American Peace Corps-style of programmes to immerse students in social service.

The university should devise tailor-made, short-term courses for targeted groups to sensitise them to their rights and duties.

Town and gown relationships should extend to links with non-governmental organisations, government-linked companies and even international issue-based groups that are involved in wholesome quests like environmental sustainability.

The university should encourage its staff and students to play an active role in social change. It should inspire students to focus on such areas as the environment, gender equality and equitable development. Education should be for improving the lives of others and for leaving our community and our world a better place than when we found it.

Social engineering: Perhaps in all countries but especially in Asian and African societies, universities should be part of the machinery of social engineering and social restructuring.

It is every university’s job to reach out to marginalised sections of society – irrespective of race or religion – and to give them opportunities for upward mobility. In the context of Malaysia, universities should continue to help to redress ethnic and regional imbalances and the improper identification of race with stereotyped functions.

Beyond all other devices of human origin, education is the great equaliser of the human condition. Therefore, along with attracting the best students, a university should democratise education and seek a broad range of students.

It should have a balanced urban-rural representation. It should provide access to the poor, the marginalised, and the minorities.

The “quest quotient” should excite us as much as the “intelligence quotient”. A person should be educated because they are human, so it is their right to be given a chance to build their life.

Nation-building: Education should contribute to nation-building by fostering respect for each other’s cultures and traditions, and by aiding the development of political maturity.

For a plural country like Malaysia, with its dazzling diversity, this role is crucial. It can be achieved by including subjects and topics in our curriculum that foster understanding and respect for each other’s cultures and traditions. We should aim at producing graduates who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction.

Many of the above aims require more autonomy for universities. Aside from the law, there are extra-legal, bureaucratic and political traditions that pose hurdles in the way of university autonomy.

Emeritus Prof Shad Saleem Faruqi holds the Tunku Abdul Rahman Chair at Universiti Malaya. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.