Building foundations for emerging civilisations

IN SYNC: Universities must transform themselves in tandem with Malaysia’s programmes

A RECENT round-table meeting between vice-chancellors and the Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin as well as chairpersons of university boards and Akademi Kepimpinan Pengajian Tinggi (the event organiser) advisers addressed some critical issues affecting higher education and looked into strategies to take it forward.

Mohd Khaled, for example, outlined some new initiatives in public policy within the framework of tertiary education.

This included the question of access aligned with the notion of lifelong education, as well as forging a closer collaboration between universities and the community.

In this respect, the nurturing of public intellectuals from among the academic community is deemed important, alongside creating a more sejahtera (peaceful and harmonious) situation based on knowledge.

The latter is indeed very interesting as it is significant in the move towards a developed nation status come 2020.

So far, the Malaysian intellectual community has kept a low profile on matters affecting the public.  This must invariably change as society gets more matured and requires greater public discourses and debates before arriving at informed collective long-term decisions.

Not surprisingly, this culture should be nurtured within the university ambiance in appreciation of transparency and objectivity.

There must also be intellectual courage and professional honesty in questioning assumptions that govern the status quo.

As the preamble of Vision 2020 makes a mention of Malaysia as a developed nation in its "own mould", I raised questions on the extent of local universities doing so.

I suggested that the tertiary institution, as one which shapes the nation's future, must execute this role before we can expect the same from the country.

In today's term, universities must "transform" themselves in tandem with Malaysia's programmes.

In other words, the former cannot remain insular and be left behind when all else are changing.

This is where the second challenge of Vision 2020 is most relevant. It dwells on "creating a psychologically liberated, secure and developed Malaysian Society with faith and confidence in itself".

This Malaysian Society must be distinguished by being "psychologically subservient to none and is respected by the peoples of other nations".

Unless this happens, we will be stuck with the mould created by others, as is the case today.

There is also the sixth challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society, one that is innovative and forward-looking, which is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilisation of the future.

It challenges the notion of innovation by being a utilitarian ambition (read: commercial and consumerist), and more importantly by building foundations for emerging civilisations that require the social latitude of innovations aimed at the larger societal well-being.

It is imperative that universities have a "civilisational" world view as well.

Being entrepreneurial can be limiting unless the world view also changes, especially when universities are bound by a corporate culture which is largely alien to their raison d'être.

This cannot be more illustrative given the environmental blind spots in the Vision 2020 framework, just like that of the corporate world until it is too late and the damage is too extensive to heal.

Here, universities must share part of the blame for being psychologically subservient to  others, so much so they are not able to break out from the existing mould (read: mindset), let alone create one of their own.

In summary, if the round-table is to have a long-lasting impact, it must be quick in not only ironing out the current predicament, but also contextualising it to imbibe the transformative language of Vision 2020 and beyond.

This means it needs to transcend mere economic development which "must not become the be-all and  end-all of our national endeavours".

Appropriately, a civilisation is about building the right social processes where excellence in intellectual thought and cultural refinement is crucial in promoting human dignity preceding any form of development, namely material ones.

Failure to take this into consideration will cause universities to be sidelined in an increasingly complex world.

After all, as Disordered World (2012) author Amin Maaloof pointed out, our civilisations are exhausted, approaching the threshold of moral incompetence.

- The writer is the vice-chancellor of the Albukhary International University