Do we need a council of professors?

This might not be a burning issue the public cares about. But it does need exploring because it brings into question the very basis of how we think about this nation.

THE recent furore over some senior professors being prosecuted for corruption has drawn some public attention to the usually quiet halls of academia. Specifically, it has placed a spotlight on the National Council of Professors.

Do we need such an entity? No we don’t. But also, yes, we do – hey, I’m an academic; this is what you get when you ask an academic a question! Please bear with me. Knowledge must come with some philosophical introspection that is not 5G-downloadable.

Most Malaysians do not really care about professors and their disciplines or so called “expertise”. Most Malaysians simply either want to graduate from universities as quickly as possible or want their children to do so.

In my view, university education is no longer about knowledge or growth in self-awareness but more a licence to be an industrial cog in the machine.

It is this attitude that is actually driving our country into ignorance and conflict. Knowledge is seen as a commodity, not a way towards self-growth.

So, of course, no one really cares about professors – most Malaysians do not read books for knowledge. Those who do read choose books by professors outside of Malaysia.

Who cares whether there is a National Council of Professors? Yet, the thing is, this is an important question if we’re to see our way forward as a nation.

For me, there is no need for such a council if professors know what their role is in society. I am of the opinion that a professor needs to do three important things as the conscience of the nation.

Firstly, a professor must be the bridge between his or her knowledge and society so that our nation can change for the better.

In a democracy, the people hold tremendous power in the one-man-one-vote concept. They have the power to put a decent president in office or a known fascist and indicted criminal if they so choose. Basically, a nation is as ignorant as the people who vote ignorant people into power.

In the days of monarchies, professors – or whoever the learned people were of the time – could change society directly by advising monarchs and that was why they needed to be in the corridors of power.

But in a democracy, the power is “out there” with the people – more so nowadays with the strength and speed of social media.

The power of one vote has multiplied 100 times with the presence of social media. In this fast paced and multi-communication age, professors need to educate the public using whatever means is available at their disposal.

But I don’t see many professors doing that. Perhaps they’re busy hanging about the corridors of power and making themselves known to ministers and prime ministers so that they can climb ever higher that greasy pole of power?

Presently, if you were to check which columnists and podcasters people read and listen to, you would not find many professors’ names, perhaps other than mine.

We have the Keluar Sekejap podcast by Khairy Jamaluddin, who is immensely popular because people are hungry to understand issues. However, I do believe that a politician like Khairy, even though he is intellectually very capable, would always have a political agenda.

I have called out many professors I know to do what KJ is doing and spread their knowledge but there has been no answer.

The second role of professors is to speak beyond their disciplines and put together various types of knowledge to form the bigger picture.

This means that professors must never sit in silo full of self-appointed experts. We do not need so many specialists – what we need more of are philosophers and visionaries who can see hints of the future.

American theoretical physicist Dr Michio Kaku is a respected scientist doing serious research. But he also popularises many scientific ideas among the public, speaking with other scientists and exploring fields other than his own to predict possible futures for humanity.

Historian Prof Dr Yuval Noah Harari, who penned Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, writes widely about how human society works and how it will fare in the future.

Who do we have in Malaysia that come close to these two? Tak ada. The future of Malaysia is left to narrow-minded politicians or bigoted religious teachers.

The third role of the professor is to advise the government of the day.

This advice can be given in private but can also become a discourse in the public realm if a leader or the government ignores the advice.

The professors can then become strong advocates but can do so with academic decorum and without resorting to vile political or populist ranting.

If our professors can do these three things, then we do not need a council of professors. But, as you can see, our professors have been bred in the industrial age of education and knowledge production. I don’t know of any who have any philosophical constructs about where we should be going as a nation.

I don’t see professors, whatever their affiliation with any councils or academies, doing anything close to what I have outlined.

These councils and academies seem to me to be merely self-serving, with their members sitting in a corner waiting to be appointed to positions or to consult. Do we really need such groups of academics?

We badly need visionary professors with strong and clear philosophical and spiritual constructs of the future so they can be guides to society and its leaders, and mentor the next generation of academia. We do not need professors who pander to petty politicians or sell knowledge and expertise as a common commodity.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.