ADUN SPEAKS | After all the controversy surrounding the role of the National Council of Professors (MPN) about its subservient role to the former BN government, there was an expectation that it might adopt a more critical role after becoming a corporate entity recently.

The MPN might have changed its registration, but it is still composed of key academics who held the fort during the BN rule.

The form might have changed, but the contents are the same.

Despite a membership of nearly 1,500 professors from public universities, MPN has done nothing significant in the 12 years or so in terms of uplifting the academic standard of lecturers and professors.

During the BN days, this council served to prop up Umno and BN by not taking a critical stand on corruption and other scandals, or sometimes praising them.

Worse still, the MPN praised the former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak despite the scandals associated with the infamous 1MDB fund.

For the blind support of BN, MPN was on the verge of being struck off after Pakatan Harapan won the last general election.

However, through the intervention of certain parties and a meeting with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, MPN was not removed but allowed to assume a corporate role as a private-sector body.

MPN, with its experienced professors, has a role in the country in terms of advising and providing future directions.

These professors have a role to play in resuscitating public universities suffering from a myriad of problems.

However, despite the changed structure of the MPN, its role is no different from what it was before, parked under the Higher Education Ministry.

While MPN might not have taken a critical stand on the recent Malay Dignity Congress, surely it was not expected to throw its blind support behind former academic Zainal Kling (above), who essentially gave a racist and divisive opening speech at the congress.

MPN argued that it was not wrong on the part of Zainal to raise the matter of “social contract” as it was embedded in the political bargain between Malays and non-Malays.

MPN officials know very well that the nebulous “social contract” was more a figment of Zainal’s imagination than anything else.

For a person like Zainal, such fictitious thinking is nothing new. Years back, he even questioned whether Peninsula Malaysia was ever colonised by the British.

It is funny that MPN did not take a cue from Mahathir to defend Zainal’s speech on the grounds of freedom to engage in hate speech.

Whether MPN is private or public, its character has not changed for the better.

We are dealing with MPN members whose thinking and actions are undemocratic and unchanging.

Do we really need a body like MPN?

I am not sure.

The question is whether MPN needs a new kind of leadership - leaders willing to take up the critical challenges facing both the institutions of higher learning and the country.

P RAMASAMY is Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang and the state assemblyperson for Perai.

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