Less than 30% of public university lecturers have PhDs

In a report last Saturday in the Star, our Minister of Higher Education Shafie Salleh, announced that 5% of the places in our local public universities will be opened to foreign students. At the end of that article, I noticed Shafie giving an interesting statistic - that only 29.7% of lecturers have PhDs, against the target of 70% which the government has set. I assume that Shafie is referring to lecturers in public universities although that wasn't explicitly stated.

This statistic surprised me greatly. My sense has always been that the % of lecturers in the local universities with PhDs is closer to 50% than 30%. Perhaps my impressions have been based on my interactions with faculty in UM, USM and UKM. It might still be true that the % of lecturers in UM, USM and UKM is substantially higher than 30%. But irregardless, this statistic is shocking. How can we expect to have world class universities if only 30% of our lecturers have PhDs? It would be impossible for someone to lecture at a half-decent university in the US or the UK without a PhD qualification. But this seems to be the norm rather than the exception in Malaysia.

Granted, Malaysia has a unique system whereby lecturers without PhDs are required to teach in local universities before being sent abroad to get their PhDs. But still, wouldn't one expect this policy, after time, to increase the % of our lecturers with PhDs? My impression is that a university like NUS is drastically ramping up the % of its faculty with PhDs. I won't be surprised if it reaches 100% by 2010. In contrast, our Minister of Higher Education, in the same Star report mentioned above, that we'd have difficulty even reaching the 70% target. Perhaps, our UM VC and our Minister can ask Prof Shih, the president of NUS, for advice on how to achieve this 70% target.

But in the meantime, I'd like to offer up my 2 cents worth of advice based partly on my own experience and what I've heard from my friends in Malaysian academia. Firstly, encourage those lecturers without PhDs to apply for private sources of funding to do their PhDs. One of the major impediments to those lecturers who want to go abroad to do their PhDs is the lack of government funding. This is not surprising given that the government pays for both the school fees as well as the living expenses of lecturers who go abroad to do their PhDs. In a good school in the US, this would probably cost 45,000 US$ per year ($30,000 for school fees and $15,000 for living expenses). Hence, there are only a limited number of places available in a year, which explains why some lecturers have to wait 10 years or more before being sent to do their PhDs abroad (if at all).

The system does not give incentives for aspiring PhD candidates to seek external private funding. The length of the bond is the same regardless of the amount of the government scholarship. And if one wants to apply for external scholarships such as the Fulbright (US) and the Chevening (UK), one has to go through a government body such as the JPA to apply rather than apply directly. Furthermore, most local universities only provide funding for 3 years which encourages potential candidates to apply to universities in Australia and the UK rather than the US, where private funding is more readily available. In my case, I obtained a school fee waiver ($30,000 per year) plus a yearly stipend from my university (guaranteed for 5 years), Duke, as well as summer funding from a Fulbright scholarship. It is common practice that if you are accepted into a good PhD program in the US, your school fees will be waived and you are likely to receive some form of yearly stipend. You'd be lucky to get your school fees waived in a UK university. Living costs support is almost unheard of.

Wouldn't it be easier for our local universities to create a system which encourages aspiring candidates to seek private funding as a way to overcome the local shortage of funds? Doesn't it make sense to create a system which decreases the length of the bond for candidates who manage to find outside funding?

The current system in Malaysia ends up having the following consequences:

1) Lecturers end up going to get their PhDs when they are relatively advanced in age (more than 30, sometimes close to 40) which limits their productive years in academia
2) Lecturers end up going to schools which are relatively easy to get into and who accept these lecturers because of the ability to collect school fees from them rather than on the basis of talent. Usually, this means that lecturers end up forming little Malaysian enclaves in places like the University of Liverpool or the University of Manchester (no offense to the alums of these schools) rather than places like Stanford or Harvard.
3) Some lecturers end up not doing their PhDs at all and teach all their lives with only a Masters degree

The other way of increasing the % of lecturers with Phds in the local universities is to ... hire more lecturers with PhDs! Not exactly rocket science. Shafie mentioned in the Star report that, 'As a short-term measure, the Government would be beefing up the number of academics by hiring more foreign lecturers with PhDs'. If Shafie were to put his thinking cap on, he would realize that there is already a pool of Malaysians with PhDs which he can tap into - Malysians with PhDs who are lecturing abroad! In Duke, I know a full professor in the Medical school who's a Malaysian and another full professor in the Literature department who's a UK citizen but who was born in Malaysia. I know of another professor who's a Malaysian in UNC Charlotte and I was referred to a certain Prof Ho Eng Seng who's teaching social anthropology in Harvard by a friend from USM. Professor Danny Quah, a renowned professor of economics, teaches at one of my alma maters, LSE. The Star featured Dr. Tan Mah Wah in its Global Malaysian series and Dr. Tan is currently teaching in Stanford. Indeed, Dr. Tan's story emphasizes my earlier point - he applied for a British Council scholarship to do his Masters in Cambridge and then applied and got a full scholarship to do his PhD in Harvard!

There is a large number of highly qualified Malaysian PhDs teaching in renowned institutions all over the world. I'm not sure what the exact number is but a conservative guess would probably number well into the hundreds (if not thousands). Even if Malaysia could get half of these scholars to come back to teach in Malaysian universities, we'd be well on our way to acheving the 70% mark set by the government. And if the government thinks that these scholars are too difficult to entice back to Malaysia, why not try with younger Malaysians who are currently doing their PhDs on their own in prestigious universities? I'm part of a Malaysian forum mailing list which mainly comprises of Malaysians who are doing their PhDs here in the US. I'm guessing that there are at least 30 people on the list who are in various stages of their PhDs. Why not tap this market?

Shafie has to ask himself this simple question - if he or the Malaysian government cannot entice Malaysians who have gotten their PhDs from world class institutions to return to UM to teach, what makes him think that he can entice non-Malaysians of comparable standing to come to Malaysia to do the same? Whatever answer he gives will not be satisfactory.

If he says that these foreigners will come because of better career prospects or better pay, is he saying that non-Malaysians will be given a better treatment than Malaysians of equal quality and experience?

If he says that these foreigners will only be in Malaysia for a short-term contract, is he saying that faculty on short term contracts would improve the university's standing, provide better teaching and better research than Malaysians of a comparable standard who have an interest in helping to create world class Malaysian universities?

The honest truth is that the foreigners with PhDs that local universities manage to employ largely comprise of two categories:

(i) Academics (read: White) from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealandwho want to take a break to teach in the relatively undemanding setting of our local universities for a couple of years before returning home (and get paid an expat package for their services)

(ii) Academics from developing countries who cannot get a job in the developed world and are attracted to the relatively higher financial rewards from teaching in a Malaysian university. I'm not saying that there are no good academics in developing countries but if they are really of a world class standard (A) they would have gone to teach in a university in a developed country (B) they would have stayed back to teach in their home country because of nationalistic or personal reasons. (There are exceptions to this but very few. Prof Hashim Kamali of the IIU is one whom I can think of)

As a final note, let me share something more personal. After completing my PhD, I'll probably return to Malaysia but I won't teach or lecture in a public university. There are many reasons for this but the main one is that I don't see a compelling vision from the leadership of our public universities on how to build a genuinely world class university. If the VC can sell me (and others) a convincing vision of how he or she wants to build UM, let's say, into a world class university (maybe start with being a regional powerhouse first), I'm sure that I (and others) would be excited to take part in this project (even at the cost of making financial sacrifices in the short term). Just don't sell me your vision of erecting billboards and decorating lamposts with shameful banners.

It is sad to see that even as the Minister identifies a glaring problem - the low number of lecturers with PhDs in local universities - he cannot come up with a comprehensive plan for addressing this problem but instead has to resort to short term 'gimmicks' like scholarships for foreigners and visa extensions for foreign lecturers.