The Higher Education Ministry wants local private higher learning institutions which have less than 50 students to merge under a consortium to reduce their losses.

Its parliamentary secretary Dr Adham Baba told the Dewan Rakyat today that the ministry is currently outlining the merger strategy for 48 local Bumiputra-owned private institutions identified as facing a shortage in students.

However, he added no private institution has responded to the merger proposal although the ministry is offering incentives - such as exemption from stamp duty and property gains tax - to those who do so before 2006.

Apart from these, he said the institutions will also be given other incentives such as being exempted from obtaining a new permit for the transfer of courses and the merged entity will also be allowed to share resources such as libraries and workshops.

Students in the new entity will also be allowed to choose their courses and be given credit transfer.

Adham was responding to a question from Suhaili Abdul Rahman (BN-Labuan) on the ministry's efforts to help struggling Bumiputra-owned private higher learning institutions.

Will it become compulsory?

The parliamentary secretary noted that during the tabling of Budget 2005, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had encouraged private higher learning institutions to merge to share intellectuals and form an education entity that could compete with other famous universities in developed countries.

In a supplementary question, he explained that the reluctance of these institutions to merge was due to several factors such as the difference in courses offered, different campus locations and the they do not want to bear the burden of debts of another institution.

Asked by reporters later, Adham said the ministry has yet to determine whether the merger would be made compulsory for institutions facing student enrolment problem after 2006.

"What we hope is that they could merge before 2006 since the government is offering various incentives to them," he added.