The idea of setting up a university to be owned by the largest ruling political party, Umno, is the latest sign of an unhealthy higher education development in the country, said the opposition.

"There is not a single first-world country where political parties compete to establish universities," lamented parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang in a statement today.

Several other main ruling parties are already running their own tertiary education institutions.

MCA owned the Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman while MIC has the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology and Gerakan will soon launch the Wawasan Open University.

Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie Salleh had cited the existence of universities owned by political parties in Malaysia as one of the reasons for Umno to have its own institution.

The minister, who is also Umno's education bureau joint deputy chief, said last Friday that a Umno-run university would be a "symbol of the party's strength and struggle".

He added that a memorandum on the Umno university will be tabled at the party's education bureau meeting soon.

The meeting will discuss whether 'Universiti Umno' was necessary in view of that there are 17 public universities in the country.

Higher education in crisis

However, Lim said the minister should understand that Malaysian higher education was in a deep crisis with poor international ranking and local universities losing their top talents.

The opposition politician referred to, among others, the recent 'forced' resignation of Dr Edmund Terence Gomez who failed to get the Universiti Malaya's approval for his application for secondment to a prestigious United Nations research post.

"These should be his (Shafie) single-minded priority and concerns as higher education minister instead of trying to restore his popularity in Umno by advocating an Umno university," Lim said.

The veteran politician, who is also Ipoh Timor parliamentarian, said Shafie's announcement led to a question whether he was the higher education minister for all Malaysians or only for Umno.

"He should decide whether he wants to be 'father of Umno university' or to pioneer higher education reform as the minister for higher education to catapult all universities in the country to world-class status," Lim added.