When Universities Are Bled Dry

A colleague came back today from a three day long gathering of all the IT deans from all the local public universities. They had been discussing the national ICT education policy, and some of the results were quite surprising, to be honest. For instance, I've just found out (beyond rational belief) that my particular faculty has one of the highest numbers of staff with PhDs in the country (this has no bearing on the actual quality of the institution or their research, but more on this later). Secondly, and perhaps more importantly none of the local IT faculties can afford to send their lecturers abroad for their doctorates! Apparently most of their staff are opting to do their PhDs locally, since internal funding is next to zilch (especially for the newer University Colleges). What makes this interesting is that so far, all universities agree (discreetly) that it is beginning to rankle them that the medical and engineering faculties continue to receive "critical" status even when they're unsure of the eligibility of those fields.

For the uninitiated, critical status for a particular field simply means you get an extra RM 500 added to your base pay, and the priority to procure funding for overseas study. If you're a member of the academic staff, the promise of getting funding for your doctorate means the world. Of course there are the yearly external scholarships (which are contested throughout the world, and which I'll definitely apply for) but it's nice to know that our place of work can actually send us to wherever it is we want to go. So where did the money go? No one really knows for sure. When enquired, a certain government agency could only speculate that the money went "somewhere in the last election".

Anyway, there's the issue, clear as day: Local universities can no longer afford to send their IT people out to get their doctorates. There is, according to the government, no more money. Now if that isn't weird, I wonder what is. So we start to hear whisperings of unhappiness. People are questioning, why isn't IT a critical field as well? Are engineers and doctors the only people who are qualified to go abroad?

As much as some of you may think this affects me, strangely enough it doesn't. Not in the way even I'd expected. Well, actually what DOES affect me is the fact that the government can actually run out of money to fund overseas research. Not to say that local research isn't any good, but if what I hear is true, and my university is actually the one with the best research staff, then the rest really has something to worry about. A field like computer science cannot depend on inter-varsity knowhow alone. The field and its many sub-disciplines expand almost every day at an exponential rate. Try reading through any recent journal publication related to the area (IEEE, ACM) and it will become readily apparent that without a focused consistent effort to bring in the expertise and technology, we'll be stuck producing the same things over and over again.

So how will I handle this? I know if I DO want to continue on this path I will HAVE to go abroad. I cannot forgive myself if I don't. A PhD is four years of my life, and I will not have it wasted on something I have no interest in doing, nor I will have myself settle for anything less than the best. If I can't do it where and how I want, I might as well not. Am I being selfish? I figure I deserve this much. Heck, I'm halfway to quitting the science line altogether and do something like media studies anyway. So in the meantime I'll be waiting to see where this goes, and trying for those external scholarships.

They'll have to try extra hard to bring this dream of mine down.

*Again, on a totally unrelated note: Joanna Bessey in a baju kurung is sooo hot.*

*drool*