The country’s first teacher-training university will undoubtedly struggle due to the deep cuts to the Higher Education Ministry’s allocation under Budget 2016.

Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) vice-chancellor Zakaria Kasa said the university has no choice but to make do with the cut.

“When there is a cut in the budget, it affects the operations of the university in general. Nobody can deny that.

“However, we have to accommodate with the cut,” Zakaria told Malaysiakini .

As such, the university would have to find other sources of income.

And one way to do this is by ensuring that its business wing, UPSI Holdings, would be able to compensate for the cut imposed.

“We also have to plan our expenditure. We buy only things that we really need and we have to reduce the use of electricity and water, plus other utilities.

“In other words, we have to spend wisely and also work hard to find new sources of income,” Zakaria said.

Promises not to increase fees

Nevertheless, Zakaria promised that the university will not increase its fees.

“We will only do so if we are instructed to by the Higher Education Ministry.

“However, we are allowed to increase the fees for graduate programmes. But we will try not to increase the fees for the graduate programme,” he said.

As evidenced in the announcement made by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in his budget speech last week, the Higher Education Ministry will see heavy cuts to its allocation.

The ministry's funds will be slashed by a whopping RM2.4 billion. It will only receive RM13.378 billion, compared with RM15.785 billion in Budget 2015.

This is the deepest cut for the ministry since the prime minister tabled his first budget in 2010. Several opposition MPs have questioned the deep cuts, predicting that fees at public universities will increase, effective next year.

However, Higher Education Minister Idris Jusoh stressed that public universities will not be allowed to increase fees for undergraduate programmes.

Idris was quoted by Astro Awani yesterday as saying that cuts to the ministry’s allocation should not be an excuse for universities to increase the fees and told them to instead utilise their assets to make money.