Finally. The Higher Education Ministry of Malaysia announced recently that more public university (IPTA) lecturers will be sent overseas to pursue their PhDs. This, of course, comes in the wake of the Government’s aim of having at least 75 percent of public university lecturers holding doctorate-level qualifications.

Currently, only 20 percent of our public university teaching force have PhDs. Sad, but true. We can only hope that this move will ensure a higher quality teaching force in the near future, hopefully in time to achieve the Government’s recent aim of two public universities in the World’s Top 50 by 2010.