Former finance minister Daim Zainuddin has proven that age is never a barrier to accomplishing one’s goals when he received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Arts & Social Sciences.

The octogenarian today received his PhD scroll from Universiti Malaya Chancellor Sultan Nazrin Shah at the university's 58th convocation ceremony at Dewan Tunku Canselor in Kuala Lumpur.

Daim’s three sons, two daughters, six grandchildren and great-grandchild were present at the ceremony to celebrate his feat.

The 81-year-old told the media he started pursuing his PhD in 2008 but had to take a five-year break due to health issues. When he returned to finish what he had started, he was appointed as the advisor to the new Pakatan Harapan government.

Despite his hectic schedule, Daim managed to complete his thesis entitled “The Implementation of the New Economic Policy: Success and Failures”.

Asked what made him to pursue his PhD, Daim said he was often called to give talks where he had to do a lot of research beforehand and this is what lured him to do research and write a thesis for his PhD.

“Knowledge is power but knowledge must be used for good. When we have the knowledge we can use it to give out our opinions on things for the benefit of the people around us,” he said.

“There are a lot of success and failures; the important thing is we have to learn from our failures to not repeat them, and whenever success is found we should exploit it to our advantage,” he said.

Daim added that Malaysia is one of the countries that produced high numbers of people with university degrees, but today there were many still unemployed.

“We must ask the question, are we producing the right graduates to face today's challenging job market? Because education is one thing but the right education for our people to logically solve problems should also be considered," he said.

Today's convocation saw 6,562 people receiving postgraduate and undergraduate degrees as well as diplomas.

- Bernama