Daim, 81, received his PhD scroll from Universiti Malaya chancellor Sultan Nazrin Shah for his dissertation entitled “The Implementation of the New Economic Policy: Success and Failures”.

His three sons, two daughters, six grandchildren and great-grandchild were present at the university’s 58th convocation ceremony at Dewan Tunku Canselor here to celebrate his achievement.

He told the media that 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 dissertation.

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.

At today’s convocation, some 6,500 people received postgraduate and undergraduate degrees as well as diplomas.