Minister calls for universities to be more open

There will be no restriction on any educational programme, debate, forum or discourse at the public universities, said Malaysia’s Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik, as he urged university vice-chancellors and their deputies not to impose such restrictions as higher education institutions are supposed to be an open intellectual field, writes Siti A’isyah Sukaimi for New Straits Times.

“University is an open intellectual field and in an era of new Malaysia, there should no longer be any restriction on educational programmes. Such restriction (imposed by the previous government) had caused some programmes scheduled to be held at public universities to be cancelled at the eleventh hour,” he told reporters last week.

He said in an effort to make public universities more open, any form of barricade at the entrance would be prohibited. “All barricades must be lifted as we want to stop that kind of environment [with barriers] in Malaysia, like how they did in the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge,” he said.
Full report on New Straits Times site