RM100 million MUST Fiasco

There was an "urgent" call by a reader to blog on the Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) as highlighted by Sdr Lim Kit Siang two days ago. Sorry-lah, old men Kian Ming and Tony are never going to be able to match the speed and agility of youthful Sdr Lim. ;)

Anyway, have you readers ever heard of MUST? Well maybe if you ransack the brain compartment where you store old nuggets of trivia, you might just remember it.

MUST was set up in 2002 as a brainchild of our former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammed as a showcase of Malaysia's research and development prowess, "endorsed" by no other than Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MUST was to create “a pool of technology experts, an essential ingredient to attaining the national objectives under Vision 2020” and aimed to have 500 students in five years and 5,000 students in 10 years.

Of course, it is coincidental that MUST was also set up as a private institution owned by the ambassador-at-large for Higher Education, Datuk Effendi Norwawi. whose private investment holding company, Kuching-based Encorp Group Sdn. Bhd. He formed a consortium with the Selangor State Government to establish MUST Ehsan Foundation to enter into the collaboration with MIT to establish the postgraduate university.

It is understood from a reliable source that the Government has funded as much as RM100 million to sponsor students to the university as well as in "fees" to MIT.

As reported by the New Straits Times, MUST is now on the brink of closure less than 5 years after commencement of operations, with less than 10 students enrolled. Unsurprisingly, research "ties" with MIT is dead.

If we can't even get an existing relationship with a top university in the world working properly, can we be at all confident that another RM500 million "collaboration" with the University of Cambridge would not suffer the same fate?