LETTER | The Pakatan Harapan government must be congratulated for hitting the ground running. They are moving at amazing speed, beyond expectations. They are proving they mean business. Obviously, the leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad is providing the momentum for this pace of change.

In this massive restructuring exercise, it is important that the government gets all the help it can from the people in terms of ideas and views on what is good for the country and its future. The government must remain open to ideas from the outside if it is to be successful in its effort to charter a new course for the country.

In this context, I have one concern with the new ministry of education – not with the minister but with the possibility that he may have been given an impossible job.

As presently structured, the minister is responsible for all levels of education – primary, secondary, and tertiary. To my mind, this is an impossible job. It is a task that no minister can perform satisfactorily.

The government may want to consider retaining the old structure – i.e., separating school education from higher or tertiary education. This may mean higher operating cost, but it will be money well spent.

There are just too many problem areas at the school and tertiary levels for one minister to handle. To create a separate wing within the ministry of education to handle tertiary education will not do. It will only dilute the attention of the minister. Both school and tertiary education will suffer as a result.

Placing higher education under a deputy minister will help, but he may not get the full administrative support he needs to do his job well. School education and tertiary education are distinct, with their own demands, issues, and concerns. In the past, they could have been combined because both areas of education were relatively small in operational terms. But today, each area is huge and requires the full attention of a separate minister and ministry. Combining them may not be a good idea.

This is especially so because the concerns and priorities of lower education and higher education are different. Higher education is not what it used to be. Today, there are 21 public universities and three times that number of private universities. In addition, there are several hundred colleges offering tertiary education, including 100 community colleges.

There are also foreign universities in the country. International students in the country are expected to reach 200,000 in the new future.

This is a rapidly growing education sector that needs to be managed well. If properly managed, this sector can be economically important for the country. It can be an income earner. Higher education is also significant for its link to human capital development and, consequently, to the economic growth of the country and its diversification.

If Malaysia wants to move up the global value chain, it needs excellent talent and talent management. This rests largely with the ministry of education and how our institutions of higher learning are managed.

At present, there are many grouses with the way our institutions of higher learning are managed, both public and private. There is much room for improvement and structural change. This calls for a separate minister for higher education. The problem is too big and too important to be placed in a single ministry of education

Similarly, our school system calls for a thorough review. Many issues need to be revisited. These include teachers, teaching, the medium of instruction, content, administration, vernacular schools, and national integration. The school system has not delivered.

The new minister of education will have his hands full just to revamp the school system. He simply cannot be expected to also manage higher education. It may be advisable to separate the two.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.