A Pakatan Rakyat federal lawmaker has questioned cuts in  Budget 2015 for public universities under the Education Ministry, and he wants to know whether this will cause students to pay higher fees.

PKR's Sim Tze Tzin, said he is shocked that the budget sees a reduction in the allocation to the ministry by RM1.05 billion or 12.36 percent, compared with the 2014 budget.

He expects the university fees to increase between 18 to 20 percent next year.

Sim, the MP for Bayan Baru in Penang, said in 2014, the ministry was allocated RM8.466 billion, as compared with the budget of RM7.419 billion for for 2015 (see chart) .

He said of the 20 tertiary institutions, 18 of them would face cuts, with Universiti Putra Malaysia the most affected, with a 35.56 percent reduction in its budget as compared with the 2014 budget.

"Nearly all universities have seen an increase in intake of students. This year's intake is about 40,000, which is an increase of 8.05 percent from last year. Only Universiti Teknologi Malaysia saw a slight dip in intake.

“This means that the local public universities face a double whammy, a cut in their budget and the rise in the number of students.

“Under such circumstances, the universities will have two choices - either to raise the tuition fees or cut the research and development budget and other education services or both," Sim said in a statement.

He said he raised the cut in budget to public institutions of higher learning during the debate on the Education Ministry yesterday.

Will the fees rise next year?

Sim expects the university fees to increase next year and this will affect more than 538,000 university students at the 20 public institutions of higher learning.

“The expected raise in fees could be between 18 to 20 percent to supplement the deficit faced by these tertiary institutions.

“The universities may raise non-academic fees, such as hostel, registration, service fees and others. With the National Higher Education fund being cut, and the rise in university fees will add to the burden and seemed an unpopular move,” he warned.

Sim said with the budget cuts, R&D grants may see a decline, as well as laboratory equipment, journals in libraries and computer software.

This, he warned would result in many R&D projects to be affected and this would not help the development of the country.

“As a result this may cause our university rankings to fall,” he cautioned.

Sim called on the government to raise back the budget give for public universities which are seeing an increase in the number of students.

In fact, he said the allocation for 2015 should be increased to RM9.146 billion as university education is critical in driving the country forward.

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