DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang has expressed disappointment with the local education industry for failing to focus o­n raising academic standard in the country's public universities during a two-day education summit held in Kuala Lumpur this week.

Lim said the 2003 Education Summit's organisers had mainly promoted the quality and excellence at private institutions but failed to address the decline in academic standard at local universities over the last three decades.

"Is our sole strategy to restore, maintain and improve the quality of higher education in learning, teaching and scholarship purely through the presence of quality foreign universities in the country?" he questioned.