Privatisation of public higher education

Between 2013 and 2016 , govt have systematically reduced enrollment(via lower intakes compare to graduates) in public universities by 1.7% per year.  Enrollment fell from 560k in 2013 to 532k students in 2016.

That means approximate 28,000 students for 2018 alone will be deprived of access to public universities and have to pursue studies in IPTS thus incurring excessive study loan. At least 70% to 80% of them  would be bumiputra

Souce : MoHE Statistics 

Source: Mohe Statistics

 The largest decline happened to UITM which saw enrollment drop by 25,000k students over 3 years. 

This is conscious policy choice by the govt under pretext of necessary budget cuts. The actual reason is government wants to spur IPTS growth. Its consistent with govt policy as highlighted in Higher Education Blueprint 2015-25. Govt aim for 5.1% of growth in IPTS enrollment compared to 2.6% growth in IPTA enrollment per year between 2015 to 2025. 

In effect, this is privatization of public higher education. 

Source : Higher Education Blueprint 2015-2025

Govt owns substantial interest in private higher education such as IMU, Uniten , MMU, UTP, UniKL etc. Besides that, govt pumped in RM5billion to Ekuinas which end up owning Unitar, APIIT & KL Metropolitan Uni. Ekuinas parked all these under ILMU group & was suppose to public listed it but aborted the idea last year due to market conditions.

In my opinion , this presents conflict of interest in govt's role in guaranteeing access to higher education in tandem to the spirit of Article 5(1) of the Federal constitution. 

Privatization is fair if students are guaranteed access to financing & that IPTS offer much more competitive pricing then IPTA.

Unfortunately & fortunately , IPTAs are much more cost efficient since they have much lower cost of capital(govt debt's at risk free rate), cheaper land cost(campus construction cost). Therefore, IPTS have to compensate with lower operating cost in order to provide better pricing. However that is at best inconclusive & even if that was the case, no reason why public universities can not emulate same level of OPEX efficiency without compromising quality.

Lets look at UiTM. It was allocated RM1.67bil for OPEX for 2018 & aim to host approx 165k students which brings average operating cost per student approx RM11k per year(including 11% student contribution or fees).

In fact, at least 10% of UITM's RM1.67billion is excess spending on rents & maintenance for the UITM Campuses that was build via PFI instead of conventional govt debt. This means that there are ample of money to be saved from possible wastage & to be redirected to areas that improve graduate outcome.

Lastly , privatization of higher education in Malaysia has little to do with cost efficiency.It presents undue burden among Malaysians who wishes to pursue tertiary education. Double whammy for tax paying parents if you consider PTPTN's mortgage loan type model (instead of the much progressive income contingent loan) 

At this point, PTPTN loan repayment effectively is an over inflated regressive tax. Its time to provide the best service money can buy by prioritizing IPTAs & improving quality & equity via financing reform on higher education.