An Academic Life in Malaysia: A Wonderful Life or Satisfaction Not Guaranteed?
Reforms to Malaysian higher education have had radical implications for all aspects of the professional lives of university academics. This chapter outlines the changes brought about by the National Higher Education Plan that have affected and influenced
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An Academic Life in Malaysia: A Wonderful Life or Satisfaction Not Guaranteed? Norzaini Azman, Morshidi Bin Sirat, and Mohd Ali Samsudin
9.1
Introduction
In the quest to become a developed nation by the year 2020, the Malaysian government recognises that substantial effort must be made to develop human capital to enhance the country’s competitiveness, productivity and capacity to innovate. The success of the human capital development agenda rests in large part on the quality of the higher education system. Therefore, soon after the establishment of the Ministry of Higher Education in 2004, the government spearheaded an effort in 2007 to transform the higher education system. As a result, the National Higher Education Strategic Plan 2020 was launched with the aim of transforming and propelling higher education to a new level of excellence. The strategic plan was formulated with several phases of implementation until 2020. The plan is both broad and comprehensive in its coverage of higher education and covers the longer term, encompassing new initiatives and enhancing existing programmes. The seven broad-based strategic thrusts of the strategic plan are as follows: (1) widening access and enhancing equity, (2) improving the quality of teaching and learning, (3) enhancing research and innovation, (4) strengthening institutions of higher education, (5) intensifying internationalisation, (6) enculturation of lifelong learning and (7) reinforcing the higher education ministry’s delivery system (MoHE 2007a).
N. Azman (*) Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] M.B. Sirat Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education, Putrajaya, Malaysia M.A. Samsudin School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Georgetown, Malaysia P.J. Bentley et al. (eds.), Job Satisfaction around the Academic World, The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective 7, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5434-8_9, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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The first phase of the implementation – Laying the Foundation, which started in 2007 and has ended – aimed to lay a strong foundation in order to pave the way for phase 2 of the strategic plan. The National Higher Education Action Plan 2007–2010 (MoHE 2007b) stresses the importance of human capital development and focuses on the immediate agendas necessary to get the transformation underway. It outlines strategies for immediate implementation within the period of the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP). The strategies adopted are intended to strengthen the five core institutional pillars of higher educational institutions, namely, governance, leadership, academia, teaching and learning and research and development. In tandem with this, 21 Critical Agenda Projects were created and designed to anchor and effect change within the national higher education system. Phase two of the implementation plan was launched in early 2011, and it will continue with its
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