WE, former members of Jawatankuasa Teknikal Mansuh Auku, under the Education Ministry (2018-2019), note with cautious optimism the recent announcement regarding the abolition of the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (UUCA/Auku).
While we have yet to see the replacement Bill, this long-overdue milestone must be credited to the relentless struggles of the student activists and academic groups who have fought tirelessly for its repeal.
However, the proposal of a new higher education Bill, mooted by the Higher Education minister immediately following the prime minister’s announcement, warrants heavy scrutiny.
We urge the government to engage in extensive consultations with all stakeholders, particularly students and academics, and to adopt a strictly rights-based approach to drafting the new legislation. The ensuing law cannot and must not simply be a rebranded “Auku 2.0”.
For decades, Auku has stifled the Malaysian higher education ecosystem. The old legislation was inherently restrictive, heavily curtailing students’ rights to participate in political and civil movements, their freedom of association and their autonomy to manage campus affairs.
Furthermore, Auku facilitated systemic political interference by granting the minister the sole authority to appoint university top management and board members.
It actively suppressed academic freedom by subjecting academics to the Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 2000 (Act 605), which essentially forbids public criticism of government policies.
Ultimately, this cultivated a bureaucratic system and a culture of patronage, diverting universities from their fundamental purpose of seeking truth and advancing the social good.
The repeal of Auku is merely the beginning; our ultimate goal is a comprehensive reform of the entire higher education system.
To achieve this, the new legislative framework must aggressively address the following areas:
0 Harmonisation of university laws: We must harmonise all related higher education legislations into a single Higher Education Institutions Act. Currently, overlapping and contradictory legislations complicate enforcement and significantly increase compliance costs.
A consolidated legal framework is essential to ensure consistency, enhance accountability and protect the interests of all key stakeholders within the ecosystem.
Crucially, the new Act must be fundamentally protective in nature, in contrast to the restrictive legacy of the current Auku. It must serve as a bedrock that actively enables and explicitly codifies protections for university autonomy, academic freedom, student autonomy and institutional funding directly within the new Act.
0 Academic freedom: Academic freedom is not merely about the pursuit of knowledge; it encompasses the fundamental right of academics and students to question received wisdom, state controversial opinions and speak truth to power without fear of reprisal or censorship.
Academics must be empowered to serve the university community and Malaysian society, rather than their political masters. To restore the dignity of the academic profession, public university academics must be expressly exempted from the restrictive and punitive provisions of Act 605.
0 Student autonomy: True student autonomy extends far beyond the freedom of expression and political association. We demand the establishment of democratically elected Student Unions empowered to govern all matters related to student affairs and activities.
The existing Student Affairs Department must either be abolished or fundamentally restructured so that its staff are hired by and held directly accountable to the Student Union, rather than the ministry or university administrators.
0 University autonomy and self-governance: Institutional autonomy must serve as the core principle and the umbrella under which academic freedom and student autonomy are realised. A university must be run by its community, not by the state or the political party in power.
The absolute power of the minister to appoint vice-chancellors, university management and board of directors must be completely removed. It must be replaced by a democratic election and selection process determined by the university’s own empowered governing body and its community.
Public universities must be established as autonomous bodies that are entirely separate and apart from the government.
0 Institutional funding and financing: Public universities exist for the public good and their grants are sourced directly from taxpayers. We must unequivocally debunk the rhetoric that institutional autonomy equates to universities being forced to secure their own funding.
Autonomy dictates that the government must provide sufficient public funding without interfering in internal university affairs.
Formula-based per-student funding should be implemented as a transparent, fee-for-service payment from the government to the universities. Drastic funding cuts have severely impacted public universities globally in recent years.
In reaction to these financial squeezes, universities have increasingly resorted to alternative, privatised admission systems that prioritise students capable of paying higher tuition fees, effectively diverting the university from its public interest mandate.
0 System governance and accountability: To dismantle the entrenched culture of patronage, we must institute robust accountability mechanisms. Crucially, this requires the establishment of an independent Ombudsman.
This body would act as a neutral arbiter to resolve disputes, investigate maladministration and address grievances, operating completely independently of the universities and the ministry.
The repeal of Auku is our starting point but reforming the entire higher education system remains our ultimate objective. We stand ready to serve, advise and help establish a progressive higher education framework that robustly protects academic freedom and university autonomy.
Co-signed by Dr Azmi Sharom, DrMohd Faisal Syam Abdol Hazis, Dr Teh Yik Koon, Prof Wan Manan Wan Muda, Adjunct Prof Zaharom Nain, Rosli H. Mahat, Asheeq Ali Sethi Alivi, Nik Azura Nik Nasron, Nurhuda Ramli and Wong Yan Ke
