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Kajian Malaysia, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2019, 1–20
© Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2019. This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative
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THE UNIVERSITIES AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGES ACT IN
MALAYSIA: HISTORY, CONTEXTS AND DEVELOPMENT
Wan, Chang Da
National Higher Education Research Institute, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau
Pinang, MALAYSIA
Email: changda.wan@usm.my
Published online: 20 November 2019
To cite this article: Wan, C.D. 2019. The Universities and University Colleges Act in Malaysia: History,
contexts and development. Kajian Malaysia 37(2): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.21315km2019.37.2.1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.21315/km2019.37.2.1
ABSTRACT
In Malaysia, Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti (AUKU) is the main legislation
that governs public universities. It was enacted in 1971 and amended six times that
had profound implications for the development of higher education, particularly
on the governance and autonomy of public universities. However, the days of
AUKU are numbered as the current Government in its election manifesto has
slated for the act to be revoked and abolished. This paper examines the historical
and chronological development of AUKU, more specically the socio-political-
economic situation at the time of enactment and each subsequent amendment.
In addition, the article also explores thematic issues related to AUKU, namely
academic freedom and autonomy as well as the control of the State and Government
on public universities.
Keywords: governance, legislation, autonomy, state-university relationship
INTRODUCTION
The Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA 1971), known in Malay
as the Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti (AUKU), is the main legislation
that governs public universities in Malaysia. AUKU was enacted in 1971 and
subsequently amended six times in 1971, 1975, 1983, 1996, 2009 and 2012. The
enactment and each of the six amendments have all had profound implications for
the development of higher education and of universities in Malaysia, particularly
the governance of these public institutions, their degree of autonomy and the State-
university relationship.
Wan, Chang Da
2
This article lls a gap in the literature about this Act by exploring two
essential contexts: rst, the socio-political-economic situation in Malaysia at the
time of the enactment and each subsequent amendment; and second, the debates in
the House of Representatives leading towards the enactment and amendments. The
focus on these two aspects, I would argue, provides a detailed understanding of the
evolution of AUKU and its implications for the development of public universities
in Malaysia.
In the recent run-up to the 14th General Election, in its manifesto the
Pakatan Harapan coalition stated that AUKU is among the ve laws explicitly
slated to be revoked and abolished if the coalition was victorious. Indeed, the
coalition won the 14th General Election and ofcially formed a Government on
11 May 2018. Hence, the days of AUKU are numbered, and a detailed and critical
analysis of the history, contexts and development of this piece of legislation is
imperative as Malaysia prepares more “comprehensive and better laws, [that]
guarantee [a] high quality of education and academic freedom as well as freedom
of speech and association” (Pakatan Harapan 2018, 106).
This article examines AUKU in two ways. The rst reviews the historical
and chronological development of AUKU through its enactment and amendments.
The second focuses on two specic issues that are connected to AUKU: academic
freedom and autonomy, and control from the State and Government.
OVERVIEW OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA
Higher education in Malaysia is governed mainly by two major legislations.
While AUKU governs public universities, private higher education institutions
(which include universities, university colleges and colleges) are governed by
the Private Higher Education Institutions Act 1996. Besides these two, there are
eight other legislations which have direct and indirect relations to the development
of higher education, which include: the Education Act 1961, the Companies Act
1965, the Universiti Teknologi MARA Act 1976, the National Higher Education
Fund Corporation Act 1997, the National Higher Education Council Act 1996,
the Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 2000, and the Malaysian
Qualications Agency Act 2007 (which replaces the National Accreditation Board
Act 1996) (Zainal et al. 2013).
Higher education in Malaysia is generally divided into public and
private sectors. The public higher education sector comprises 20 universities,
33 polytechnics and 91 community colleges, which are nancially supported by
the State through the Ministry of Education.1 In 2014, 560,000 students were
enrolled in public universities, while 90,000 and 22,000 students were enrolled in
polytechnics and community colleges respectively (Ministry of Education 2015).
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
3
Conversely, the private higher education sector is made up of 70 universities, 34
university colleges and 410 colleges, with a total of 485,000 students enrolled
across the three types of private higher education institutions.
CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AUKU
Pre-AUKU
Higher education in Malaysia began before the existence of AUKU, and the pre-
AUKU period provides crucial comparative understanding of the subsequent
developments after AUKU was enacted. Higher education began in Malaya while
the country was still under the British administration. A commission, led by Sir
William McLean, was appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to
survey the existing arrangements for higher education in Malaya in 1938, and
the recommendation of the McLean Commission was to establish a university
college by merging the King Edward VII College of Medicine and Rafes College
(McLean Commission 1939).
However, the recommendation was disrupted by World War II; the four
years of Japanese occupation in Malaya drastically changed the landscape of
education in the country. Hence, after the war another commission, this time led
by Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders, was set up in 1947 by the Secretary of State
for the Colonies to re-assess the situation. The primary recommendation of the
Carr-Saunders Commission was not only to merge the two colleges, but also to
establish a full-edged university instead of a university college (Carr-Saunders
Commission 1948). Thus, in 1949 the University of Malaya was established in
Singapore under the University of Malaya Ordinance 1949, and this marked the
beginning of university education in Malaya.
In 1954 a proposal was put forward to set up an autonomous campus
in Kuala Lumpur, in addition to the existing campus in Singapore. By 1962 the
two campuses of the University of Malaya had become two separate universities.
The campus in Singapore became the University of Singapore (later merged with
Nanyang University to form the National University of Singapore), while the
campus in Kuala Lumpur became the University of Malaya. The University of
Malaya Ordinance was then replaced by the University of Malaya Act (1961),
which became the major legal instrument for the governance of university
education until the enactment of AUKU a decade later.
The University of Malaya was self-governing, with its own Constitution
enacted in the University of Malaya Act (1961). Its governing structure mirrored
a typical British university structure, including a Court, a Council, a Senate,
Faculties, a Guild of Graduates, Boards of Studies, a Board of Selection and a
Wan, Chang Da
4
Board of Student Welfare (Khoo 2005). Although the Court was seen as the highest
authority in the university, in actual fact it was merely a formal and symbolic
entity that linked the university and wider society through its broad representation,
ranging from royalty, Government gures, captains of business and industry,
distinguished citizens and foreign dignitaries from neighbouring countries.
The Council was the highest governing body of the university and
was made up of elected representatives of the Senate, the Court and the Guild
of Graduates. The Chairperson of the Council was elected by their peers within
the Council. The Council was the principal authority on policy matters of the
university, except for academic matters, and one of its key responsibilities was to
appoint the Vice Chancellor, who was the principal academic and executive ofcer
of the university. Academic matters were put under the purview of the Senate
which was chaired by the Vice Chancellor.
Prior to AUKU, the University of Malaya was the only university in the
country and was fully autonomous and self-governing based on its own Constitution
– but interestingly it received signicant nancial support from the State. Between
1962 and 1969 the State provided $61.2 million of the total $65.6 million capital
development expenditure of the university. In 1969 alone the annual recurrent
expenditure of the university was $21.3 million, of which 82.3% was borne by the
State (Khoo 2005). The remaining recurrent expenditure was covered via tuition
fees and rents of staff quarters, accounting for 13.7% and 4.0% respectively.
Although it received signicant nancial support from the State, the
University of Malaya remained fully autonomous, as reected by the fact that the
Chairman of the Council of the University of Malaya was a leading opposition
gure in Parliament. Known as “Mr Opposition”, Dr Tan Chee Khoon was an
alumnus of the university and was subsequently elected by the Guild of Graduates
to serve on the Council. He reported in a parliamentary debate that he had been
elected by his peers in the Council to assume the position of Chairman of the
Council for a year and a half (Dewan Rakyat 8 April 1975, 4447–4448).
In addition, not only was “Mr Opposition” the Chairman of the Council,
Dr M. K. Rajakumar, another renowned leftist intellectual who was seen to be
anti-establishment at the time, was also a member of the Council representing
the Guild of Graduates. Dr Rajakumar was a founding member of the infamous
University of Malaya Socialist Club and was the editor of Fajar, a radical student
newsletter produced by the club that was deemed seditious by the colonial
authorities in Singapore in the late 1950s (Loh et al. 2012). He also famously led
the opposition through the Labour Party of Malaya and Barisan Sosialis in the
1960s. Thus, the autonomy of the university was clearly reected by the fact that
these key individuals, who were politically and ideologically in opposition to the
Government of the day, were allowed to lead and be part of the principal authority
of the university, even though it was largely funded by the State.
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
5
Following the recommendations of the Higher Education Planning
Committee in 1967, a second Malaysian university was established in Penang. It
was initially named the University of Penang, subsequently changed to Universiti
Sains Malaysia. The Cabinet commissioned a committee in 1968 to draft a
constitution for the new university. This committee was led by Mohamed Sufan,
who was also involved in the drafting of the Constitution of Malaysia and who
later became the Lord President of the Federal Court. Interestingly, the Sufan
Report for the University of Penang began by outlining the important principles
of university autonomy and academic freedom as fundamental to a university.
The committee used the University of Malaya as the benchmark in its task, and
recommended that the new university should be an autonomous body separate and
apart from the Government (Sufan 1969). This therefore reafrmed the fact that
the University of Malaya was fully autonomous, with the Sufan Report on the
University of Penang eloquently stating:
When an autonomous institution is mainly dependent for its income not
on the fees of pupils, nor on private endowments, but on subventions
from the State, how far should it have independent powers of initiative
and nal decision? Such a position of material dependence is in fact
today the position of the University of Malaya. So far in the history of this
country the activities of the University of Malaya have been remarkably
immune from interference or control by the Government. Even though
the growing nancial needs of that University have increasingly made
the Government the provider both of recurrent and of capital grants,
exceptional care has been taken by Government to see that these
subventions are made in a way that involves the minimum of interference
with the policy of the University. … It must, however, be said that in the
determination of the aggregate amount to be spent from public funds, the
Government necessarily has the last word and a wise university naturally
wants to take into account the Government’s responsibility for national
development and for a fair and equitable distribution of the country’s
wealth among all sections of the community. Subject to this, we believe
that academic freedom is a necessary condition of the highest efciency
and the proper progress of academic institutions, and that encroachments
upon their liberty, in the supposed interest of greater efciency, would
in fact diminish their efciency and stultify their development. (Sufan
1969, 2)
Furthermore, the Sufan Report for the University of Penang also spelt
out four constituents of academic freedom and university autonomy in terms of
appointments, curricula and standards and the admission of students, the balance
between teaching and research, and salaries and stafng ratios. While the proposed
Constitution of the University of Penang was largely similar to the Constitution of
Wan, Chang Da
6
the University of Malaya, the articulation of the guiding principles of university
autonomy and academic freedom by the committee underlined the importance
of these concepts to ensure the Constitution fullled its mandate in upholding
self-governance prior to the introduction of AUKU. The same committee led by
Mohamed Sufan, with the exception of one member, also drafted the Constitution
of the National University, which is Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Enactment of AUKU
The 13 May 1969 incident not only changed the social, political and economic
fabric of Malaysia, but also left a deep impression in the development of higher
education. Due to the racial rioting in Kuala Lumpur, a national state of emergency
was declared and Parliament was suspended. Hence, universities were put under
the jurisdiction of the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance No. 74. This
Emergency Ordinance then became the basis of AUKU, which was enacted in
1971.
The major rationale for the enactment of AUKU in 1971 was to provide a
legal instrument for the establishment of universities in Malaysia, and to ofciate
the relationship between the State and universities. In tabling AUKU, the then
Minister of Education, Hussein Onn, explained:
Universities anywhere in the world do not exist in a vacuum. Our
universities, in particular, certainly do not. While the Government is
in agreement with the concept of academic freedom, it is necessary
however to remember always that like other freedoms it is not absolute.
It is subject to qualications imposed by national, nancial and other
practical considerations. In order to maintain its academic standards and
thus ensure its repute in the international academic world a university will
require vast amounts of public funds and in that process it will have to
bear constantly in mind the national aspirations and needs as interpreted
by the Government. (Dewan Rakyat 17 March 1971, 1401–1402)
While the University of Malaya has the University of Malaya Act 1961
as the legal basis for its existence, the Constitutions for the University of Penang
and the National University that were drafted and circulated in 1971 were not
tabled in Parliament. Instead, the two constitutions were absorbed as the Schedule
within AUKU to form the template for a university constitution. As the Minister
explained, AUKU provides the overarching legal instrument for establishing,
maintaining and administering universities and university colleges, removing the
requirement for a new act for each university or university college, as well as a
separate Incorporation Order by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong for each institution
(Dewan Rakyat 17 March 1971, 1402). Importantly, the provision of a template
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
7
constitution such as the Schedule would also ensure similarity in the constitution
of all universities.
Following the enactment of AUKU on 29 April 1971, the Act was
amended several months later to incorporate minor additions such as increasing the
composition of the University Senate to include deans, and requiring the audited
accounts of universities to be tabled in both Dewan of Parliament instead of solely
in the Dewan Rakyat. The amended AUKU came into force on 24 September
1971.
The 1975 Amendment
If AUKU marked the beginning of State intervention in universities, the amendment
carried out in 1975 gave the State full control over universities (see UUCA 1975).
The notable changes that were enacted in this amendment included the following
(adapted from Wan 2017):
1. Sections 15 and 16 extended to allow the expulsion and suspension of
individual students.
2. New Sections 16A and 16C included disciplinary action and imposed
punishment on academics, staff and employees.
3. Selection of student representatives through secret ballot.
4. Power to appoint the Vice Chancellor was taken away from the University
Council and handed to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong acting on the advice of
the Minister.
5. The Minister was tasked to appoint Deputy Vice Chancellors.
6. The Vice Chancellor was tasked to appoint Deans, Deputy Deans and Heads
of Institutes or Schools, replacing democratic elections among academics.
7. University Council was restructured to comprise ve high-ranking
Government ofcials and other representatives appointed by the Minister.
No representation from the Guild of Graduates or the Senate. The Minister
was also tasked to appoint the Chairman of the University Council instead of
him being elected in an internal election within the Council.
Arguably, the 1975 Amendment was the most signicant change to
AUKU in terms of tightening control over universities by the State. Not only did
the control of students became more elaborate, this control was also extended to
academics. In addition, the self-governing capabilities of universities were taken
Wan, Chang Da
8
away and transferred to the State. The Minister assumed a powerful position with
the ability to unilaterally determine the important leadership appointments of a
university.
However, the contexts surrounding this amendment need to be examined
more critically and carefully. Since the enactment of AUKU in 1971 student
activism has not been curbed, but instead has intensied signicantly. Historically,
student activism in the 1940s and 1950s was nationalistic in nature, aligning to the
anti-colonial movement and ghting for the independence of the country. The year
1967 was argued to be the distinguishing year following the Teluk Gong incident,
when student activism shifted from nationalistic concerns to local problems of rural
poverty, landlessness and land hunger (Hassan 1984). The Teluk Gong incident
was a dispute over land between the landless villagers of Teluk Gong and the
Government. Mass protests by university students continued and intensied after
AUKU with the Tasek Utara and Baling incidents (see Hassan 1984; Musa 2016).
Specically in terms of the Baling incident, two student-led demonstrations were
held involving more than 30,000 people in Baling and 5,000 in Kuala Lumpur on
1 and 3 December 1974 respectively, and for the rst time police went onto the
three university campuses and arrested 1,128 students (and a handful of academics).
Hence, student activism played a huge part in motivating the 1975 Amendment,
and the then Minister of Education, Mahathir Mohamed, stated the following in
Parliament while tabling the amendment:
Nowhere in the country have there been such goings-on as found in
the universities. Students take over the campus and expel university
authorities. Massive quantities of libellous documents and papers are
produced in the universities and disseminated throughout the country.
Day in and day out public money is wasted as students demonstrate and
make speeches while lecture halls are deserted. Plans are made to disrupt
life in the campuses and outside them and are carried out persistently
with impunity. (Dewan Rakyat 8 April 1975, 4399)
This “disruptive” student activism was linked to Communism as the main
enemy of the State and Islam at that time by the then Minister of Education in
his parliamentary debates (Dewan Rakyat 8 April 1975). Student activism was
equated to an act of sabotage and treachery against the nation, and therefore the
Government felt it had a duty to protect society’s and the universities’ interests
by amending AUKU. The Minister of Education claimed that pockets of students
were disrupting education through protests, instigating other students to become
involved in their speeches, and indoctrinating new students through university
orientation programmes to instil a need to ght for perceived injustices in society.
More controversially, these disruptions to education were claimed to
be a form of sabotage of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP was the
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
9
socio-economic policy introduced after the racial riots to address the imbalance
between ethnic groups. The Minister argued that the most serious impact of
these disruptions was on Bumiputera students, who were seen as the weakest
academically, hindering them from making full use of the opportunity to improve
their lives through university education.
In retrospect, while the student activism situation may justify the
amendments tightening the control of students, nevertheless a large proportion
of the 1975 Amendments was aimed at dismantling the self-governance and
independence of universities. In other words, this amendment provided the means
for the Government to intervene directly into the governance of universities, and
universities lost a signicant amount of autonomy. Was this loss of autonomy a
punishment meted out on universities for their perceived failure to control their
students? Or was the disruption a convenient excuse for the Government to wrest
control back from the self-governing universities?
There was a minor amendment in 1983 (see UUCA 1983), where
Section 5 was amended to loosen the prohibition on establishing universities in
preparation for the establishment of the International Islamic University Malaysia
under the Companies Act instead of AUKU.
The 1996 Amendment
The 1996 Amendment was another major milestone in the development of AUKU.
The deliberation to amend AUKU again was tabled in Parliament in December
1995, and the amendment came into force in October 1996 (UUCA 1996). The
1996 Amendment brought about another signicant restructuring of Malaysian
universities, particularly in terms of corporatising their governance (Lee 2004;
Wan and Morshidi 2018). Among the notable changes resulting from the 1996
Amendment were (adapted from Wan 2017):
1. Power to appoint the Vice Chancellor was transferred from the Yang di-
Pertuan Agong to the Minister.
2. The University Council became the Board of Directors. Sixteen
representatives were reduced to eight, and all representatives on the board
were appointed by the Minister.
3. The University Senate was downsized from including all professors and
deans (200–300 members depending on the university) to only including
institutional leaders and not more than 20 professors, to be appointed by the
Vice Chancellor.
Wan, Chang Da
10
The 1996 Amendment was initiated to provide a framework for the
corporatisation of public universities.2 The restructuring of the highest governing
body of the university, from a council to a board of directors, illustrates the
changing discourse and the replacement of terms from academe with those from
corporate governance. The reduced composition of the Board of Directors to only
eight representatives was also meant to be more in line with the corporate practice
of having a lean governing body.
The most impactful change resulting from the 1996 Amendment was
the downsizing of the University Senate, which effectively gagged the academic
voice in universities. Not only had the numbers of professors been reduced in the
highest academic body in a university; even these small representations had to be
appointed by the Vice Chancellor. As may be expected, professors who were vocal
and critical of the administration of the university or the Government would not
be appointed, and the restructuring of the Senate therefore seriously undermined
the authority and independence of academics in a university. Detrimentally, the
restructuring consolidated authority in the hands of a single individual, the Vice
Chancellor, who not only chairs the Senate and appoints institutional leaders (as
provided in the 1975 amendments), but also appoints all other representatives
in the Senate. In other words, the authority of the Vice Chancellor on academic
matters was made absolute in the 1996 Amendment.
In addition to the intended purpose of making changes to universities,
the global and national economic context also played a big role in shaping this
amendment. Since the early 1990s, corporatisation and privatisation of higher
education has been the global trend. Earlier in the decade, the United Kingdom
and Australia began to charge full tuition fees for international students, as
well as subsidised tuition fees for domestic students. The economic ideology
of neoliberalism that coexisted with concepts of New Public Management,
accountability, delivery and efciency gradually seeped into the vocabulary of
university governance (see Besosa 2007; Morshidi 2010; Sporn 2005). Hence,
corporatisation, marketisation and privatisation in higher education were taking
place globally, particularly in developed higher education systems.
Economically, the early to mid-1990s was a boom period as the Malaysian
economy recovered from the recession of the 1980s. Economic growth has
increased the expectation and demand for higher education. Particularly with the
non-Bumiputera middle class, access to public universities has been challenging
due to the ethnic quota, and the alternative was to send their children abroad. Not
wanting to disrupt the ethnic quota in public universities but at the same time with
the intention to increase access to higher education domestically, the Government
legalised the existence of private higher education institutions (Mahathir Mohamed,
pers. comm., 19 July 2016). This led to the tabling of the Private Higher Education
Institutions Act 1996, and along with the liberalisation of the higher education
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
11
sector several other legislations were also tabled during the same period. These
legislations included the National Higher Education Fund Corporation Act 1997,
the National Higher Education Council Act 1996 and the National Accreditation
Board Act 1996.
The political-economic ideology at that time was to privatise key sectors as
part of economic reform. Public utilities and national industries such as the postal
services, energy supply and telecommunications were privatised through multiple
forms of divestment of public ownership (Gomez and Jomo 1997). The aim was
to deregulate the economy, reduce State intervention and curb State funding.
Higher education was not spared from this structural reform. Hence, in 1996 the
concurrent legalisation of private higher education institutions and corporatisation
of public universities exemplied the political-economic ideology of privatisation
undertaken by the Government.
However, while the 1996 Amendment of AUKU may have intended
to reduce the dependence of public universities on State funding, the reality is
that this amendment has resulted in a loss of academic voice in universities, and
strengthened the Government’s ability to intervene directly, not only in terms of
governance but also regarding the academic matters affecting the university. As
Morshidi (2010) claimed, while Government had exerted control over universities
through budgetary, nancial regulations and student intakes since the 1970s and
1980s, their core academic and institutional autonomy was completely stripped
away in the 1990s, and the 1996 Amendment of AUKU played a big enabling role
in this.
The 2009 and 2012 Amendments
AUKU was further amended in 2009 and 2012. These two amendments, although
not as drastic as the previous ones, deserve to be examined along with the contexts
that led up to them. Among the signicant changes from the 2009 amendment
were (adapted from Shad Saleem 2019):
1. Establishing a “search” committee to advise the Minister on the appointment
of leadership positions in universities.
2. Authority given to the Minister to second or transfer a university employee.
3. Authority to control students shifted from the Minister to the university.
4. Criminal penalties in AUKU were abolished and student discipline was
decriminalised.
5. The authority to discipline academics, staff and employees of the university
was abolished.
Wan, Chang Da
12
6. Establishment of a “campus” of a university in or outside of Malaysia was
provided for.
7. A representative from the Senate on the Board of Directors was reintroduced.
8. A Management Committee of the University was introduced.
The 2009 Amendment was initiated after the Ministry of Higher Education
launched the National Higher Education Strategic Plan 2007–2020 (PSPTN). One
of the underpinning discourses at this point was that universities need a greater level
of autonomy and accountability to compete with the very best institutions globally.
The PSPTN clearly emphasised autonomy as necessary to attract and retain talent,
advance research and develop competitive graduates. Hence, the provision to
set up a search committee to advise the Minister on appointments, empowering
universities and providing a voice for academics from the Senate to sit on the
Board of Directors, collectively underlined the aspiration of the Government to
give some degree of autonomy back to universities. The developments in autonomy
following the 2009 amendment will be discussed in the next section of the article.
At a by-election in April 2010, four students from a public university were
arrested by police and disciplinary proceedings were initiated by the university
under Section 15(5)(a). Although they were found not guilty by the university,
they sought a court declaration that Section 15(5)(a) of AUKU contradicted
Article 119 of the Federal Constitution, which states that every citizen over the age
of 21 is qualied to vote, which implies expression and participation in politics.
However, in this particular section AUKU forbids expressing support for political
parties and participating in politics. The High Court declared the restrictions
were constitutional, but this decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal by
a majority decision on 31 October 2011, meaning that this particular section of
AUKU is unconstitutional and violates freedom of expression (The Star 2011).
This landmark decision of the Court of Appeal therefore became the basis
for the 2012 amendment. The major change in AUKU was mainly to relax the
limit concerning control over students’ participation in politics on campus, and
alongside this change were two administrative amendments:
1. Making the position of Director General of Higher Education formal within
the administration of higher education.
2. Introducing the National Higher Education Register under the charge of the
Director General.
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
13
THEMATIC ISSUES OF AUKU
Having examined the chronological development of AUKU, specically its history
and social-political-economic contexts, the focus of the paper is shifted to the two
major recurring themes associated with AUKU: academic freedom and autonomy,
and control by the State and Government.
Academic Freedom and Autonomy
Academic freedom and university autonomy are two interrelated and inseparable
concepts. In its 1997 Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher Education
Teaching Personnel, UNESCO (1997) denes academic freedom as:
The right, without constriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom
of teaching and discussion, freedom in carrying out research and
disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express
freely their opinion about the institution or system in which they work,
freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in
professional or representative academic bodies.
In other words, an academic has the freedom to conduct research, teach,
speak and publish about their subject to the norms and standards of scholarly
enquiry without external interference in the search for truth and understanding.
University autonomy, on the other hand, refers to the degree of self-
governance of the institution and the institutional form of academic freedom.
Importantly, university autonomy is the “necessary precondition to guarantee the
proper fullment of the functions entrusted to teaching personnel and institutions”
(UNESCO 1997).
AUKU has been the instrument used by the Government to restrict
institutional autonomy, although the initial draft of the legislation was meant to
provide a legal framework for establishing universities. As the Minister assured in
1971 while tabling AUKU:
Mr Speaker, Sir, a university established under this Bill will be an
autonomous body and apart from the Government. It will be a body
corporate with perpetual succession and with specic powers as
mentioned in Clause 7 of the Bill. (Dewan Rakyat 18 March 1971, 1467)
However, the subsequent amendments deviated from the original intention.
First, the 1975 Amendments dismantled the self-governance capabilities of
universities by restructuring the University Council and removing the democratic
structure comprising diverse representation of stakeholders including academics
Wan, Chang Da
14
and alumni. Second, the 1996 amendment completely wiped out the inuence of
academics by downsizing the Senate, as well as further streamlining governance
under the pretext of corporatisation. Collectively, therefore, these two major
amendments signicantly reduced the degree of self-governance and provided
avenues for intervention into the governance of universities by external parties,
notably the Minister and bureaucrats from Governmental agencies.
Given the fact that university autonomy was removed through legislation,
the restoration of university autonomy should have been accompanied by legislative
reform. This may include repealing or revising AUKU by “undoing” the 1975 and
1996 amendments. Despite the fact that successive Ministers of Education/Higher
Education have gradually awarded autonomous status to all 20 public universities
from 2012 up to the present, this has not been accompanied by legislative and
structural changes in terms of human resources, nancial procedures or the
appointment of leaders of these universities (see Fauziah and Ng 2015; Soaib and
Sufean 2012; Siti Naaishah, Shad Saleem Faruqi and Nazura 2009; Wan 2017;
Wan and Abdul Razak 2015). Hence, with the current AUKU in place, public
universities remained less autonomous as compared to the institutions that existed
before 1975.
The lack of university autonomy suggested that academic freedom would
also be limited. Section 16A in particular, which was added in 1975, has been
seen as the main hindrance to academic freedom in AUKU. However, this Section
was repealed in the 2009 amendments, and control over academics, staff and
employees of the university was detached from AUKU. Although AUKU currently
does not have direct control over academics, the status of a public university as
a federal statutory body therefore implies that all academics and employees of
the university are subject to the Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act
2000. Furthermore, due to the fact that public universities subscribe to the human
resource framework of the Public Service Department, academics and employees
university are also subject to some of the instructions and rules meant for civil
service employees, such as the need for permission to travel outside Malaysia for
ofcial purposes such as attending conferences or presenting a paper; this requires
permission not only from the Vice Chancellor and Chairman of the Board of
Directors, but also from the Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Education.
Control by the State and Government
Historically, given that AUKU was developed with minor amendments from the
Emergency Ordinance No. 74, a strong element of “control” and “maintaining
order” was incorporated into the inaugural draft of AUKU. The “notorious”
Sections 15 and 16 of AUKU, which outlined prohibitions on students’ activities
and the power of the University Council in relation to student organisations,
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
15
received strong objections from students and the academic community in
universities even prior to AUKU’s enactment in 1971. Yet it is important to point
out that the provision of Section 15 in AUKU 1971 prohibited student councils
and organisations from developing afliations with political parties or trade
unions (Clause 15.1), while individual students were prohibited from becoming
ofce holders in political parties or trade unions (Clause 15.2). Particularly for
the prohibition in Section 15.1, the justication was that student organisations in
universities were not subject to the Societies Act and other laws of the land, and
therefore had to be included in AUKU to safeguard against inltration by negative
elements. The Minister also reafrmed:
All these, however, do not prevent students in their individual capacity
from having or expounding their political views. This, Mr Speaker, I
wish to make absolutely clear. This does not, however, prevent students
in their individual capacity from having or expounding their personal
political views. (Dewan Rakyat 18 March 1971, 1465–1466)
While the control was mainly focused on student councils and organisations
in the initial Act in 1971, this control was narrowed down to individual students
beginning with the 1975 amendment. AUKU also spelt out terms of criminalisation
for political behaviour through punishment and penalties for violating the law, and
political behaviour was only decriminalised in AUKU from the 2009 amendment
onwards. Specically in term of control over politics, the 2012 amendment
restricted political involvement only on campus, and students are now free to
participate in politics and express their political support and afliations outside
campus.
Besides control over students, the amendments to AUKU over the years
have given authority to the Government to exert strong and direct control over
universities, most clearly illustrated through the powers of the Minister in the
appointment of key leadership positions in these institutions, namely the Vice
Chancellor, Deputy Vice Chancellors, the Chairperson and members of the Board
of Directors/Governors. The powers of the Minister have increased signicantly
from the initial AUKU, whereby the authority was only to investigate. The 1975
amendment empowered the Minister to appoint Deputy Vice Chancellors as well
as have strong inuence on the appointment of Vice Chancellors by advising
the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. In the 1996 amendment the power to appoint Vice
Chancellors was given solely to the Minister. Although a search committee was
provided in the 2009 amendment to advise the Minister on the appointment of
university leaders, the committee only exists to make recommendations and the
authority remains rmly in the hands of the Minister.
The gradual concentration of power into the hands of the Minister was
forewarned by the opposition when AUKU was tabled in 1971. In the debate to
Wan, Chang Da
16
enact AUKU, a Member of Parliament who was also the Chairman of University of
Malaya’s Council suggested that the Minister should establish a University Grants
Commission to provide some form of coordination of funding across universities
and enable a more consistent funding stream:
… not on a year-to-year basis as it is now, but on a ve year basis, so as
to enable the Universities concerned to plan with greater assurance of
funds that will be forthcoming. (Dewan Rakyat 18 March 1971, 1488)
Having an independent Commission to disperse public monies provided
some forms of checks and balances on the role of the Minister in terms of funding
for universities. Further analysis of the amendments to AUKU illustrate the
crudeness displayed by the Government in “bulldozing” through these proposed
changes. For instance, the debates on the 1975 Amendment only lasted ve hours
in Dewan Rakyat, despite attempts to table additional motions to counter-amend
AUKU being raised by the opposition. The debates on the 1996 Amendment
were even shorter, only lasting two hours for the Second, Committee and Third
Readings.
WHAT NEXT FOR AUKU?
Now that the political party that advocated the repeal of AUKU has become the
Government and the repeal has clearly been stated as part of their manifesto, it is
expected that a major reform on the governance and legislation of higher education
will take place. There are several possible scenarios that the Government may
consider in relation to AUKU.
First, if AUKU is to be repealed, there is a need for a replacement legislation
to provide a legal framework for public universities. While the sentiment expressed
in the manifesto advocating the repeal of AUKU was that this is a highly repressive
legislation, in fact, the “repressiveness” can only be attributed to Sections 15 and
16 in the earlier versions, as well as the consolidation of authority into the hands
of the Minister of Education. It is crucial to note that AUKU is the source of legal
authority for the existence of 18 of the 20 public universities.3 Thus, a replacement
in the form of another overarching legislation like AUKU has to be put in place,
or every public university will require a separate act on its own as a legal basis
for existence, such as University of Malaya Act before AUKU was enacted.
The former option of having one replacement Act is the more practical solution,
avoiding drastic disruption to legislation.
However, if having one overarching replacement act is considered, this
initiative also presents an opportunity for a more thorough legislative reform
in higher education. The Report by the Committee to Study, Review and Make
AUKU: History, Contexts and Development
17
Recommendations Concerning the Development and Direction of Higher
Education in Malaysia, more fondly known as the Wan Zahid Report, has outlined
that the AUKU has not been comprehensive to cover the different roles undertaken
by universities (Ministry of Higher Education 2006). Other crucial academic
matters, such as study programmes, qualications of academics, teaching permits,
research, quality assurance and standards, are not covered in AUKU. Also, as
mentioned earlier, there are eight legislations that directly and indirectly relate
to higher education, and the separation of AUKU and Act 555 has been a major
factor in separating the Malaysian higher education system into two different
terrains. Hence, this therefore may be an opportune time to consolidate the various
legislations and develop a comprehensive and consolidated legislation for the
entire higher education system of Malaysia covering public and private higher
education institutions.
Second, if the Government is serious about the autonomy of universities,
the initiative to repeal AUKU or replace it with a similar act provides an opportunity
to restore the self-governing capabilities of universities. The pre-AUKU University
of Malaya before 1971 could serve as the basis to put in place the structure
for individual public universities to govern themselves without interference
from external parties, including the Government and minister. Furthermore,
the Autonomous Universities Act in neighbouring countries like Indonesia and
Thailand which have legislatively enacted the concept of autonomous universities
(see Lao 2019; Pannen, Wirakartakusumah and Subhan 2019), could also serve as
reference point for awarding autonomous status to universities and have the rights
and responsibilities of all parties outlined in the law. Another good practice to
consider is the case of New Zealand where all public universities are autonomous,
and the law clearly outlines a collective governance structure that is not dominated
by one party, be it the Government, bureaucrats or university community. The
idea of an autonomous university is therefore for the university to determine its
own direction and course of development, and not to be waiting for allocation and
directive from an external party.
Apart from restoring self-governing capabilities to ensure autonomy of
universities, the enactment of new legislation for higher education further presents
an avenue to create a buffer body in the national governing structure. The idea of
a University Grants Commission has been a common structure used to detach the
governance of universities away from the Government and bureaucrats, by placing
it in the hands of subject matter experts within the Commission. The structure of
having independent buffer body(ies) or Commission(s), although not necessarily
having the word “Commission” in its name, to govern the national higher education
system has been practiced in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, New Zealand,
India, Thailand and the Philippines with some degree of variations. However, the
commonality is to put the governing, disbursing of public monies and monitoring
into the hands of a collective group of subject matter experts.
Wan, Chang Da
18
CONCLUSION
AUKU has served the higher education of Malaysia for more than ve decades.
What began as an Act to provide legal authority to establish universities has
developed and changed its course in line with social, political and economic
developments of the country, by heavily inuencing the governance of universities
and control over students and academics. In the end, AUKU has been perceived
to be a hindrance to the progress of universities and their autonomy as well as to
academic freedom, but in all fairness AUKU still has an important role in providing
legal authority for public universities to exist and operate in Malaysia. It is perhaps
the opportune moment to revisit the legislation of higher education as a whole
as well as the governance of higher education institutions at both the system and
institutional levels.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This article has been accepted for publication on 27 January 2019, before the author’s
appointment to a consultancy project for the Ministry of Education involving AUKU, in
March 2019.
NOTES
1. Higher education was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Higher Education
between 2003–2013 and 2015–2018. When the Ministry of Higher Education
ceased to exist, higher education was placed under the Ministry of Education.
2. From this point onwards, private universities could be legally established following
the enactment of the Private Higher Education Institutions Act (Act 555) 1996. For
clarication, the term “university” in this article will continue to refer to public
universities established under AUKU, and “private university” to refer to institutions
established under Act 555.
3. International Islamic University Malaysia was established under the Companies Act
and Universiti Teknologi MARA has its own act; but these two are also considered
public universities as they do receive public monies.
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