More endowments needed

Saw this report a couple of weeks back about a businessman, Datuk Ghazali Mohd Yusoff, who gave UKM RM1 million to endow a chair at the Institute for Environment and Development (Lestari) at UKM in memory of his mother. We need more endowments of this nature as part of a long term plan to wean our public universities off public funding. It's a model which most universities in advanced countries led notably by the US (UK and Australia are getting into the act as well) where public funding is being slowly cut and fees are increased at the same time as endowments which can be used to fund chairs and decrease fees for needy students.