Abstract
With strong intention to enhance the global competitiveness of their university systems, both the Singapore and Malaysia governments have introduced reforms along the lines of ideas and practices embedded in neo-liberalism. In the last decade or so, we have witnessed reforms being introduced to the higher education sectors in these Asian states, particularly when corporatization and incorporation strategies are adopted to transform national/public universities. With particular reference to how academics evaluate the impact of the reforms on their academic life, this article reports and analyses findings generated from campus visits and field interviews conducted in Singapore and Malaysia from 2007 to 2009. Although the senior management of corporatized/incorporated universities in these Asian states has been given more discretion to decide how to operate their universities, most of the front line academics that we interviewed have not experienced major differences in university governance after the reforms took place. Instead of feeling ‘emancipated’ and ‘empowered’, many academics feel more pressures and control from the university administration and government ministries. Despite the fact that both the Singapore and Malaysia governments have tried to embrace the ideas and practices of ‘neo-liberalism’ to transform university governance, academics still see the state’s reluctance in withdrawing from steering/controlling higher education development. Such observations clearly reflect the ‘clash’ of two major governance philosophies, namely, ‘state centralism’ and ‘neo-liberalism’. In short, this article critically examines how far the proposed university governance reforms by adopting the corporatization/incorporation strategies have actually transformed university management and academic life style in Singapore and Malaysia.
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Notes
When discussing the notion of incorporation of national universities in Singapore, we refer to the process in which ‘incorporated’ national universities are expected to become more autonomous from the government in their operations especially when they de-link with the civil service. Before national universities are incorporated, academics were employed on civil service terms and universities were run like as government departments. After national universities ‘incorporated, their managerial structure is expected to have realigned—placing the president at the center of the decision-making process, and with the participation of external persons—to be more responsive to the changing needs of society with more efficiency. When discussing the notion of corporatization of public universities in Malaysia, we mean the adoption of ideas and practices commonly shared by business corporations in managing national universities for enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in university management. Unlike Singapore, public universities in Malaysia have not been ‘incorporated’ and academics are still employed on civil service terms despite the fact that they are under more pressure to run like business companies for promoting entrepreneurship (for details, see Organisation for Economic Co-operation, Development (OECD) 2003; Oba 2009; Mok 2006, 2007). One point which deserves attention here is that the notions of ‘corporatization’ and ‘incorporation’ sometimes are used interchangeably by scholars in Asia when discussing changes in university governance.
In order to examine how senior management and academics evaluate the impact of governance reforms in these two Asian countries, the author conducted campus visits to major national/public and private colleges/universities in Singapore and Malaysia, conducting intensive interviews with government officials, members of the senior management team and academics who are primarily responsible for teaching and research in 2007 and 2008. Adopting a purposive sampling method, the researcher identified only those who are knowledgeable about the university governance changes in Singapore and Malaysia, either through introducing or implementing reforms in the higher education sector or experiencing the transformations taken place after incorporation/corporatization of public universities. Before starting the field visits and intensive interviews, the researcher had completed an intensive policy and documentary review, having developed some good understanding of the most recent educational reforms and policies adopted by Singapore and Malaysia in transforming their university systems into a more responsive to external changes. The researcher went to three rounds of field visits to Singapore and Malaysia during the research period, conducting around 30 intensive field interviews with government officials from Ministry of education in Singapore (Head of Higher Education Division)/Ministry of higher education (Head of the division), presidents or vice chancellors/provosts/vice presidents/deans or associates of national/public (now incorporated/corporatized universities), and ordinary academics who hold no particular administrative positions in Singapore and Malaysia. All the respondents being interviewed are very knowledgeable about the current governance changes that universities are experiencing in these Asian societies. The selection of these interviewees is based upon their administrative positions, teaching and research experiences. Normally, intensive interviews took place in the offices of the respondents and each interview would last for around 1 h. Through various rounds of intensive interviews, the researcher can validate the findings generated from the fieldwork and critically examine the gap between the policy documents and evaluative comments from the respondents.
The choice of Singapore and Malaysia as comparative cases because both of these Asian governments used to adopt a highly ‘centralized’ governance model in directing higher education developments but most recently higher education systems have experienced significant changes especially when the governments of Singapore and Malaysia have recently recognized the limitations of their systems when coping with growing challenges generated by local, regional and global forces. Only finding the conventional higher education governance rendered inappropriate and ineffective, these governments have begun introducing reforms along the lines of corporatization/incorporation in transforming higher education institutions. It is against this wider policy background that all national universities in Singapore are incorporated; while public universities in Malaysia have been transformed in terms of corporatization measures. The choice of Singapore and Malaysia for comparison would offer us insights/perspectives in understanding why, how and what major changes taken place in the higher education systems in these Asian societies for moving beyond the traditional forms of higher education governance, especially when ideas and strategies of incorporation/corporatization are introduced to search for effective university governance.
Central to New Public Management Model (NPM) is to run the public sector like the business field. NPM deals with issues such as efficiency, effectiveness, delivery, flexibility, measurement, and outputs (Besosa 2007). Attaching heavy weight to outcomes and ends, the NPM model is criticized for missing the ideals of equality, common good and justice since it takes a utilitarian and instrumental orientation. Against the context of growing influence of neo-liberalism, the survival of higher education depends on their capacity to cope with such a globalization impact and new technology on the one hand, and the need to serve the labour market, innovate with the business sector and provide professional development courses which would promote economic and intellectual growth on the other (Blunkett 2000).
When discussing the processes of globalization, marketization, privatization, decentralization and commodification of higher education, the author realizes the diversity of interpretations of such notions. Well aware of differences in understanding of these concepts among higher education analysts, the author has no intention to claim that these terms are accepted and shared notions meaning the same for every higher education analyst. For details of the author’s understanding of these notions, please refer to his book published in 2006.
A critical analysis of how the ideas and practices of neo-liberalism have affected the way higher education systems in Singapore and Malaysia are governed, we must be aware that both the governments of Singapore and Malaysia have attempted to make use of the market (and market-like strategies) as policy tools to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of their higher education systems, though they may not be genuine believes in the philosophy underlying the market (i.e. giving genuine choices for people in the market). Hence, we have observed oscillation between decentralization and recentralization, deregulation and reregulation as policy ‘yoyo’ during the processes of higher education governance changes (for details, see Mok 2009c; Morshidi 2009).
During my various field visits to Singapore and Malaysia in the last 3 years, I have discovered the rise of private colleges/universities. In order to attract overseas students to enroll in their programmes, private university colleges like Sunway University College, International University College of Technology Twintech and Taylor’s University College, all of these newly developed private colleges have established partnership with overseas universities to accredit their programmes, whereas their students can get two certificates (one from the private college and the other from the overseas university). Taking Sunway University College as an example, they grant dual degrees with the accreditation from the Lancaster University, UK to attract students from overseas. Similarly, Taylor University College also partners with University of South Australia, RMIT University Australia, and University of Reading, UK for offering dual degrees for their students.
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Part of the materials of the present paper is based upon the author’s field visits to Singapore in 2007 and 2008. Thanks must be extended to the University of Hong Kong for offering Seed Funding Programme and the Research grant Committee of the HKSAR Government in offering a public policy research grant [HKU 7005-PPR-6] to enable the author to undertake fieldwork in Singapore and Malaysia.
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Mok, K.H. When state centralism meets neo-liberalism: managing university governance change in Singapore and Malaysia. High Educ 60, 419–440 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-009-9307-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-009-9307-9