Geoffrey Williams of Malaysia University of Science and Technology said private universities would regularly introduce new courses to attract more students.

Facing pressure to earn revenue, the institutions would heavily promote these courses and would do so even before the courses were fully accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA), he told FMT.

Williams said these new courses were often highly specialised and required specialists to teach them.

“The faculty members then become overwhelmed by the student numbers or there is high faculty turnover due to poor pay and conditions.”

He said the faculties and their managers were sometimes undertrained, demotivated or poorly supported.

As a result, these issues with human capital would reflect in the poor quality of courses, causing the MQA to suspend or refuse accreditation after auditing them.

“The students then suffer. But this is a management failure, not an MQA failure.”

Williams said MQA was effective at auditing courses, adding that cases of its denial of accreditation to courses at private universities were common.

However, it was rare for large numbers of courses or large student cohorts to be affected at the same time.

“Mostly, universities respond quickly to MQA requirements and would meet the minimum compliance criteria,” he said.

He advised prospective students to check that their courses were fully accredited by MQA before signing up for them.

The MQA is the government agency in charge of supervising and monitoring standards of courses offered at private learning institutions. It first grants provisional accreditation to new courses, and will subsequently give full accreditation to a course if it meets minimum standards during an audit.

“Although universities complain about this, the truth is that without MQA audits, standards would collapse completely due to financial pressure to cut costs,” Williams said.

Sharan Raj, a central committee member of Parti Sosialis Malaysia, said problems with accreditation had been around since the establishment of the first private universities more than 20 years ago.

“Since then, there have been many complaints from students and their parents that many of these private colleges were or are offering sub-standard courses,” he said.

He said private institutions, mainly motivated by profits, would usually choose to cut corners when faced with the high costs of providing quality education.

“The private sector also does not have sufficient upfront capital to invest in proper campuses compared with the federal government. Thus, many privately-owned institutions are cramped into shoplots.

“In the short term, the higher education ministry should ensure that the MQA has the necessary funds and staff to monitor private colleges and enforce minimum standards so our youths are not short-changed by these for-profit institutions.”

Sharan also said Putrajaya should recognise that the privatisation of higher education had caused harm to youths, with many being denied the education they had paid for while simultaneously being saddled with student debts.

On Monday, it was reported that about 800 foreign and local students at a premier private university had been left in the lurch when the university could not get accreditation for many of its courses.

The students said MQA revoked its accreditation because the university failed to maintain the required standards.