KUALA LUMPUR – Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah has called on universities in Malaysia to operate like businesses, even as they serve as academic institutions, to ensure that the education they provide is relevant and valuable to the global marketplace.
The Perak ruler reminded his audience that while universities are not strictly businesses, their success and value cannot be measured purely in terms of profit and their students are not simply “customers”.
“It might seem logical that these universities need to think and operate more like businesses.”
“They (universities) must be forward-looking, agile and adaptable. They must think carefully about the value their courses provide in the global marketplace,” the Perak ruler said in his keynote speech at the Royal Address 2023 held at the Asia-Europe Institute Auditorium in Universiti Malaya (UM) today.
The event was held in collaboration with the Higher Education Leadership Academy and the Higher Education Ministry.
Sultan Nazrin, who is the chancellor of UM, was delivering his address on the theme of “Shaping University Leadership for the 21st Century Higher Education”.
Sultan Nazrin emphasised that universities have a civic duty in society as they are entrusted to produce leaders and defenders of knowledge.
He cited as an example the creation of the AstraZeneca vaccine in a short period of time by the University of Oxford to counter the Covid-19 virus.
He noted that it was possible for the vaccine to be formulated during efforts to combat the global pandemic because of the university’s eminence and its strong base of scientists.
He also said that the vaccine could not have been designed due to market forces, but required moral and academic leadership.
Sultan Nazrin also said that employment in the current age of the fourth industrial revolution demands that the youth have capability in digital literacy. Universities should therefore help prepare the minds of the upcoming generation for the challenges ahead.
He urged universities of the 21st century to recruit and retain good students by preparing them for the global marketplace.
Universities today should nurture quality faculties that produce valuable research, he added. The institutions should be committed towards good teaching in sustainable campuses, creating a vision that inspires loyalty and generosity among their alumni. – The Vibes, February 8, 2023
