It's been 10 months since the submission of the Wan Zahid Higher Education Report, but the government has yet to act on it, lamented Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang.

As Parliament will adjourn in less than two weeks, he said that the High Education Ministry must table its preliminary position based on the report by then.

"It is scandalous and outrages if the Higher Education Ministry requires an even longer period than six months to study the Zahid Report [...] does it require up to three years before it could present to Parliament a memorandum on its preliminary position on the report?" Lim asked in a statement today.

Commissioned in Jan 2005, the 11-member committee headed by former Director-General of Education Wan Zahid Nordin studied various aspects of the tertiary education system culminating in a report submitted in July the same year, and made public earlier this week.

The committee was tasked with identifying steps needed to improve the standards of higher education to world-class standards.

Glaring omissions

While welcoming a number of recommendations made in the report, Lim said there was obvious "defects and weaknesses" such as the omission of any reference to the Universities and University Colleges Act, the Statutory Bodies Act and the Aku Janji requirements.

Lim argued that such factors were among those causing "the shriveling and stifling of academic freedom and excellence in the nation's universities" which attributes to the steep drop in international rankings of the country's top universities.

Nonetheless, he praised the committee for making several revolutionary recommendations, including:

A) the Higher Education Minister should devolve his powers to the university board of directors to safeguard university autonomy

B) appointment of vice-chancellors to be made open and through advertisements to employ best candidates

C) appointment of vice-chancellors requiring at least 15 articles published in internationally referred journals

D) researchers be allowed rights over research and receive a portion of research royalties from commercialisation and patenting

In a related development, Lim also announced that a Parliamentary Roundtable on the report will be held on May 10.

Expected participants include the Higher Education Minister Mustapa Mohamed, Barisan Nasional Backbenchers' Club president Sharir Abdul Samad, parliamentarians and academics.