PARLIAMENT The Education Ministry will fine-tune the guidelines on setting study fees by private higher educational institutions to ensure that the fees charged are reasonable and match the quality of course programmes offered.

    

Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan said the move would enable more students to further their studies at the private varsities according to their financial capacity.

"Diversity of IPTS and course programmes together with reasonable fees charged will provide ample opportunities for students to continue their education at the universities in their chosen field."

Kamalanathan said this when winding up the debate on the Private Higher Educational Institutions Bill (Amendment) 2014 in the Dewan Rakyat.

The bill is to replace the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996 (Act 555).

He said the ministry was always monitoring the operations of the universities, especially the quality of the study courses and services offered, as well as the intake of foreign students and hiring of foreign lecturers.

The deputy minister said foreign students applying for a pass to study at the universities would be screened in two stages - before and after entering Malaysia.

"This includes screening for visa approval, academic screening by Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS), security screening by police and immigration screening by the Immigration Department.

"After entering Malaysia, they will undergo health screening," he said.

    

On hiring of foreign lecturers by the universities, he said tight screening would be done by the Education Ministry before the pass would be issued by the Home Ministry.

Intake for med courses to be tightened

On the minimum qualifications required by students to study medicine at the local universities, Kamalanathan said the intake process would be tightened to ensure only those who really qualified and able to meet the criteria were taken in.

"We will look at their top cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.0, for example, co-curriculum marks of 10 percent and thirdly, their Malaysian University English Test (MUET) results.

"However, if so many students still choose to study medicine, we will look at their Science subject results in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination before they will be called for the interview."

Kamalanathan said the ministry tried to be as fair as possible to students who qualified to study medicine, and action would be taken against higher education institutions which took in those who failed to meet the criteria.

The Dewan Rakyat sitting continues tomorrow.

- Bernama