I've found an interesting opinion on Apex university from Prof. Ismawi's blog. It's always good to share, but in the end, we're the one who judge it.
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APEX UNIVERSITY LAGI
So now it’s confirmed that USM is the Apex University of Malaysia. Congratulation to them. They thoroughly deserved to get the recognition as they had not only worked very hard but had been very innovative in their approach. You just need to read Prof. Dzul’s column to understand what I meant. Prof. Dzul stands out among the CEOs of universities; he leads rather than manage. USM is a different university the moment he took over. We certainly need more Prof. Dzuls if our universities are to really compete. He is not afraid to say his piece even if it’s not in currency with the government’s stand. Just look at USM’s transformation plan. Yes, I am happy for him, his colleagues and students - it’s a good start because it only shows tradition of excellence is not just about age but about good strategic plan, meticulous implementation, innovative management and most importantly inspiring leadership. Because it is all that, we can achieve it too if we care to be truthful to ourselves.
Having said that I still believe that it was a mistake to have this done bureaucratically; it must be achieved through tradition of excellence. Getting the status must be done through acclaim rather than selection by a panel of eminence persons who themselves, with all due respect, were not able to produce ‘excellence’ in their own times leading their own institutions. Yes, they said ‘apex’ here does not means ‘top of the pyramid’ but is an acronym for “Accelerated Programme for Excellence”, meaning the university selected is not yet at the top but will be enabled to be at the top. But why choose the word if you don’t mean it? Unfortunately when I was learning English, my teachers reminded me to choose each word properly because each English word has connotation. Just look at the comments made by the the students and lecturers of USM since yesterday. I rest my case on the subject when you see how they beat their chests like Tarzan who has just beaten a big bad ape.
While I believe in pushing our universities to the top to excellence, I can’t help feeling that the resources are from the same cake whose size is still the same. Which means that what are going to be allocated to the AU are going to be taken from others - and I don’t think that is the business of a government. A government business should foremost be looking at fair distribution of wealth and resources to all akin parents giving fair treatment to all their children. In fact it is natural to expect that the parents to give more attention to the young ones because the older ones are expected to be able to look after themselves. If one is going to be putting in more resources on them then it should be their own resources and on their own steam and I believe USM is ready for both without government fiscal help; all they need is to just give them the autonomy so that they can do things they want to do with their accumulated wealth so far. Unlike us where the business arm seems never to be over suckling the teats of the mother, USM has a very profitable business arm, run by professionals and answering directly in business terms to the CEO. This is what happens in the British Top Universities and in American Ivy League!
Talking about the ”Ivy League”, just look at the name they chose i.e. IVY. It has no connotation of being on the top but ‘resilience and breakthrough’. Ivy (Hedera helix) is a common English plant that climbs walls and trees to get light and can survive on minimal nutrients, least of all it needs is help from other plants. That’s what we are supposed to be! APEX has the connotation of being on the top spot of a pyramid, meaning that the rests are the blocks of the structure and may be those whose sins and fault are only because they were born much later and located at places full of disadvantages so that they cannot yet accumulate much in terms of wealth and research products are probably at the base. Given the positive discrimination that actually favour those higher in the hieararchy, they are probably doomed to be Atlases supporting the world.
I must make it clear that this is not about schuldenfraude; I don’t envy USM for its achievement because they deserve it. But how in the world are they going to operate with all that expectations if they are still govern by the same AUKU that governs the rest of us. Can they use English? Can they have 20% international students if they still use Bahasa Malaysia? Can they have a different system of governance? Unless of course they intentionally ignore AUKU. Then the next question is how is one institution being allowed to flout the law of the land in the name of pursuing for excellence when others are expected to toe the line? Doesn’t that sound Michellivian when our culture demands that means must be right to justify the end? Is it really right that while one is led loose on a liberal mode, others are being held on a tight leash. Obversely the question asked may be: how do we expect the others to catch up when one is having a very favourable handicap while others are tied to the pole? I was hoping that after the March 8 tsunami, the government would rethink this whole plan whose strategy heaping resources on the rich at the expense of the poor which was started by the previous administration (as seen in the mega and glamorous projects that have the net result of extending rather than closing the socio-economic gaps of our people). Alas, they don’t seem to have learn anything at all, and that is to bring to mind that Islam requires that the state emphasizes on supporting the less endowed (is Islam Hadhari diagonally different?).
The next question is how did we miss it? From inception IIUM is set to be an international university. Foreign students and staff are our ethos. Our media of instructions are international languages. Our curricula are benchmarked on international standards and our students and lecturers are already on international pedestals. We have more PhDs compared to any other universities. Our alumni are making waves not only in Malaysia but at the world stage. Our campus and facilities are among the best in planning, design and construction. We have strategic plans that chart our transformation into very term of excellence by 2015 because we have now the Balance Scorecard and ISO audits in place. What else do they require of us? Unfortunately, we didn’t even make the shortlist as only those who are already on Research Universities are on the shortlist. Doesn’t that prove my point on the widening of the gap as result of bureaucracy and that classification is discriminating because it heaps unfair advantages on one group while ‘penalizing’ those who are in real need of support. The Apex University excercise was comparing and evaluating universities against the same set of criteria when we know fully well what the result would be: it is like comparing a grand old oak and the acorns that get splluttered by the winds beneath it. All these left bitter taste in the mouth: were we penalized for daring to be different?
I honestly believe that this is a wrong prescription for a sickness that was wrongly diagnosed. The mediocrity in the universities is because we cannot attract top-notch scholars to our institutions because the pay scheme is simply not attractive enough. We lost one to Brunei recently! They keep on saying that they are going to look into this matter for eons already now and nothing has moved; we are where we are. Until such time when knowledge creation and construction is considered as the prime mover of development as in developed countries, nothing is going to change our our universities. With what is on offer we can only attract those that are ‘regular’ rather than ’special’. If we do take them when they are young, they are going to be enticed to greener pasture when they are peaking in their productivity or just before that and the university has to do the staff development all over again. This is going to change for AU but not for others and you can be sure that excellent staff from the ‘regular’ like us will be migrating to them - making gap even bigger.
There is also a suggestion that universities take in senior people who have retired from civil service. If I may say, this is a proposal that show total ignorance on what academic life is all about. Next to the fallacy of making academicians work like bureaucrats, this only prove how our so-called policy makers continue making blunders in the name of the pursuit of excellence. It also shows their total misunderstanding on who academicians are or is it because they have very little regard for the academicians that just any Tom, Dick and Harry who are at the end of their productive age, could be repainted (not even, refurbished) into academicians? This is like one making actors into cinematography technicians; for more than 30 years they are used to doing things in a certain regime and for them to be academicians where demands for research and publications are part and partial, it is not a surprise that they failed miserably to deliver in universities, unless of course the measurement is based on the number we gave prolonged employment. Of course their networking is good and we can use them in that capacity. We should concentrate on the youngs and develop them into top-notch scholars and researchers and give them the financial and infrastructure support to retain them there. Our problem now is we are attracting too many people that others don’t want or who have no business to be academicians because they don’t have the passion for knowledge!
There was a very high expectation on the amendments to AUKU to free the creativity of lecturers. Alas it proved to be a mirage. One great man say: “If you want to be excellent, look for criticsm not praise’ but the reverse is exactly expected when they are asked for opinions on important issues affecting the nation. With the act introduced by Tun Mahathir during his tenureship as Minister of Education, we have managed to turn our lecturers into parrots and not the brains to spur the country to greater height. It’s effect is even more pronounced among our students who are to all intent and purpose the bigger versions of school children as they pursue, some time resorting to unethical practices, as many As as possible without really getting the import of knowledge. These are the problems and if these are addressed and not being pushed under the carpet because we don’t like to thing that we have failed ourselves so far, then we don’t need the synthetic AUs to create excellence.
Source: Prof. Ismawi's blog
----------------------------
APEX UNIVERSITY LAGI
So now it’s confirmed that USM is the Apex University of Malaysia. Congratulation to them. They thoroughly deserved to get the recognition as they had not only worked very hard but had been very innovative in their approach. You just need to read Prof. Dzul’s column to understand what I meant. Prof. Dzul stands out among the CEOs of universities; he leads rather than manage. USM is a different university the moment he took over. We certainly need more Prof. Dzuls if our universities are to really compete. He is not afraid to say his piece even if it’s not in currency with the government’s stand. Just look at USM’s transformation plan. Yes, I am happy for him, his colleagues and students - it’s a good start because it only shows tradition of excellence is not just about age but about good strategic plan, meticulous implementation, innovative management and most importantly inspiring leadership. Because it is all that, we can achieve it too if we care to be truthful to ourselves.
Having said that I still believe that it was a mistake to have this done bureaucratically; it must be achieved through tradition of excellence. Getting the status must be done through acclaim rather than selection by a panel of eminence persons who themselves, with all due respect, were not able to produce ‘excellence’ in their own times leading their own institutions. Yes, they said ‘apex’ here does not means ‘top of the pyramid’ but is an acronym for “Accelerated Programme for Excellence”, meaning the university selected is not yet at the top but will be enabled to be at the top. But why choose the word if you don’t mean it? Unfortunately when I was learning English, my teachers reminded me to choose each word properly because each English word has connotation. Just look at the comments made by the the students and lecturers of USM since yesterday. I rest my case on the subject when you see how they beat their chests like Tarzan who has just beaten a big bad ape.
While I believe in pushing our universities to the top to excellence, I can’t help feeling that the resources are from the same cake whose size is still the same. Which means that what are going to be allocated to the AU are going to be taken from others - and I don’t think that is the business of a government. A government business should foremost be looking at fair distribution of wealth and resources to all akin parents giving fair treatment to all their children. In fact it is natural to expect that the parents to give more attention to the young ones because the older ones are expected to be able to look after themselves. If one is going to be putting in more resources on them then it should be their own resources and on their own steam and I believe USM is ready for both without government fiscal help; all they need is to just give them the autonomy so that they can do things they want to do with their accumulated wealth so far. Unlike us where the business arm seems never to be over suckling the teats of the mother, USM has a very profitable business arm, run by professionals and answering directly in business terms to the CEO. This is what happens in the British Top Universities and in American Ivy League!
Talking about the ”Ivy League”, just look at the name they chose i.e. IVY. It has no connotation of being on the top but ‘resilience and breakthrough’. Ivy (Hedera helix) is a common English plant that climbs walls and trees to get light and can survive on minimal nutrients, least of all it needs is help from other plants. That’s what we are supposed to be! APEX has the connotation of being on the top spot of a pyramid, meaning that the rests are the blocks of the structure and may be those whose sins and fault are only because they were born much later and located at places full of disadvantages so that they cannot yet accumulate much in terms of wealth and research products are probably at the base. Given the positive discrimination that actually favour those higher in the hieararchy, they are probably doomed to be Atlases supporting the world.
I must make it clear that this is not about schuldenfraude; I don’t envy USM for its achievement because they deserve it. But how in the world are they going to operate with all that expectations if they are still govern by the same AUKU that governs the rest of us. Can they use English? Can they have 20% international students if they still use Bahasa Malaysia? Can they have a different system of governance? Unless of course they intentionally ignore AUKU. Then the next question is how is one institution being allowed to flout the law of the land in the name of pursuing for excellence when others are expected to toe the line? Doesn’t that sound Michellivian when our culture demands that means must be right to justify the end? Is it really right that while one is led loose on a liberal mode, others are being held on a tight leash. Obversely the question asked may be: how do we expect the others to catch up when one is having a very favourable handicap while others are tied to the pole? I was hoping that after the March 8 tsunami, the government would rethink this whole plan whose strategy heaping resources on the rich at the expense of the poor which was started by the previous administration (as seen in the mega and glamorous projects that have the net result of extending rather than closing the socio-economic gaps of our people). Alas, they don’t seem to have learn anything at all, and that is to bring to mind that Islam requires that the state emphasizes on supporting the less endowed (is Islam Hadhari diagonally different?).
The next question is how did we miss it? From inception IIUM is set to be an international university. Foreign students and staff are our ethos. Our media of instructions are international languages. Our curricula are benchmarked on international standards and our students and lecturers are already on international pedestals. We have more PhDs compared to any other universities. Our alumni are making waves not only in Malaysia but at the world stage. Our campus and facilities are among the best in planning, design and construction. We have strategic plans that chart our transformation into very term of excellence by 2015 because we have now the Balance Scorecard and ISO audits in place. What else do they require of us? Unfortunately, we didn’t even make the shortlist as only those who are already on Research Universities are on the shortlist. Doesn’t that prove my point on the widening of the gap as result of bureaucracy and that classification is discriminating because it heaps unfair advantages on one group while ‘penalizing’ those who are in real need of support. The Apex University excercise was comparing and evaluating universities against the same set of criteria when we know fully well what the result would be: it is like comparing a grand old oak and the acorns that get splluttered by the winds beneath it. All these left bitter taste in the mouth: were we penalized for daring to be different?
I honestly believe that this is a wrong prescription for a sickness that was wrongly diagnosed. The mediocrity in the universities is because we cannot attract top-notch scholars to our institutions because the pay scheme is simply not attractive enough. We lost one to Brunei recently! They keep on saying that they are going to look into this matter for eons already now and nothing has moved; we are where we are. Until such time when knowledge creation and construction is considered as the prime mover of development as in developed countries, nothing is going to change our our universities. With what is on offer we can only attract those that are ‘regular’ rather than ’special’. If we do take them when they are young, they are going to be enticed to greener pasture when they are peaking in their productivity or just before that and the university has to do the staff development all over again. This is going to change for AU but not for others and you can be sure that excellent staff from the ‘regular’ like us will be migrating to them - making gap even bigger.
There is also a suggestion that universities take in senior people who have retired from civil service. If I may say, this is a proposal that show total ignorance on what academic life is all about. Next to the fallacy of making academicians work like bureaucrats, this only prove how our so-called policy makers continue making blunders in the name of the pursuit of excellence. It also shows their total misunderstanding on who academicians are or is it because they have very little regard for the academicians that just any Tom, Dick and Harry who are at the end of their productive age, could be repainted (not even, refurbished) into academicians? This is like one making actors into cinematography technicians; for more than 30 years they are used to doing things in a certain regime and for them to be academicians where demands for research and publications are part and partial, it is not a surprise that they failed miserably to deliver in universities, unless of course the measurement is based on the number we gave prolonged employment. Of course their networking is good and we can use them in that capacity. We should concentrate on the youngs and develop them into top-notch scholars and researchers and give them the financial and infrastructure support to retain them there. Our problem now is we are attracting too many people that others don’t want or who have no business to be academicians because they don’t have the passion for knowledge!
There was a very high expectation on the amendments to AUKU to free the creativity of lecturers. Alas it proved to be a mirage. One great man say: “If you want to be excellent, look for criticsm not praise’ but the reverse is exactly expected when they are asked for opinions on important issues affecting the nation. With the act introduced by Tun Mahathir during his tenureship as Minister of Education, we have managed to turn our lecturers into parrots and not the brains to spur the country to greater height. It’s effect is even more pronounced among our students who are to all intent and purpose the bigger versions of school children as they pursue, some time resorting to unethical practices, as many As as possible without really getting the import of knowledge. These are the problems and if these are addressed and not being pushed under the carpet because we don’t like to thing that we have failed ourselves so far, then we don’t need the synthetic AUs to create excellence.
Source: Prof. Ismawi's blog
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