DadOKENT --------- - ED 134 109 HE 008 590 AUTHOR Tapingkae, Amnuay, Ed. TITLE Higher Education and Economic Growth in Southeast Asia. INSTITUTION Regional Inst. of Higher Education and Development, Singapore. PUB D:STE 76 NOTE 96p.; For related studies, see HE 008 588-590 AVAILABLE FROM Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development, CSSDI Building, Henq Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 5 ($6.00) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 Plus Postage. HC Not kvailable from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Campus Planning; Costs; *Developing Nations; Educational Demand; *Educational Economics; *Educational Supply; *Foreign Countries; Government Role; Growth Patterns; *Higher Education; *Manpower Needs; School Expansion; Universities IDENTIFIERS *Asia (Southeast); Indonesia; Malaysia; Singapore; Thailand; Vietnam ABSTRACT This research project, which was originally mounted in five countries--Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam--is concerned with four key questions. They are:(1) What are the social and economic forces that contribute to the rapid expansion of universities in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore? (2) What are the monetary and nonmonetary costs and benefits of this expansion? (3) Is this expansion warranted by or necessary for economic growth? (4) If the expansion is-unwarranted, what steps can government-and-thiversities tabfoie-du-de the pressures for expansion, while still supplying vital skills needed for development? (Author/LBH) ********************************************************************* * Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effoit * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are.the best that can be made from the original. *********************************************************************** HIGHER EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA Edited by Amnuay Tapingkae Authors Pang Eng Fong Riaz Hassan Niphon Kantasewi Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development Singapore 1976 3 ©Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development CSSDI Building Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 5 Printed by Eurasia Press, Singapore CONTENTS Foreword vii Introduction ix Higher Education and Economic Growth in Malaysia and Singapore 1 I. Introduction 3 II. Economic Development of Malaysia 1950 1970 6 III. Economic Development of Singapore 1960 1972 8 IV. Historical Background of Higher Education in Malaysia 10 V. Historical Background of Higher Education in Singapore 13 VI. Higher Education and Development 20 VII. The Malaysian Experience 23 VIII. Conclusion 30 Higher Education and Economic Growth in Thailand 57 I. Historical Background 59 II. Determinants of University Growth 65 III. The Effects of the Growth of Higher Education 69 IV. Toward a More Relevant Development of Higher Education 81 5 FOREWORD In view of the rapid expansion of institutions of higher education in all coun- tries of the Southeast Asian region, the Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development convened in December 1973, at Chiengmai University, Thailand, a re- gional conference on "The Growth of Southeast Asian Universities: Expansion ver- sus Consolidation" in order to take stock of the causes and consequences of higher education expansion in the region as well as to consider consolidation as an alternative. As a follow-up of that regional conference. RIHED received a research grant from Unesco to undertake a research study on Higher Education and Econo- mic Growth in Southeast Asia. This research study was mounted in five of the seven member countries of RI- HED, namely. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and South Vietnam. How- ever, because of recent developments in the Indo-China countries, the country study in South Vietnam has had to be indefinitely delayed. The country study in In- donesia has not yet been completed. Therefore, in this volume, only three country studies are presented, namely those of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. On behalf of the Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development, I would like to express our sincere gratitude of Unesco for its research grant. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Riaz Hassan of the University ot Singapore and Dr. Pang Eng Fong of the Economic Research Centre, Singapore, for carrying out the country studies in Malaysia and Singapore. and Dr. Niphon Kan- tasewi of Kasetsart University, Bangkok, for undertaking the country study in Thai- land. It is hoped that this research study will be helpful to scholars and administra- tors and government officials in the countries of Southeast Asia. It is one of the pur- poses of RIHED to make research findings available for sharing among Southeast Asian countries to foster closer cooperation and better understanding of the rela- tionship between higher education and development, not only in individual coun- tries but also in the region as a whole. Amnuay Tapingkae Director, RIHED January 1976 6 INTRODUCTION In the late fifties, research in the developed countries suggested that the materialist conception of economic growth may not be altogether unassailable; in-' come growth, it was discovered, could not be fully explained by increases in phy- sical capital and labour. There was a puzzling 'residual' that demanded expla- nation. However,' instead of being explained, the 'residual' became quickly associa- ted with, and even identified as, education. This development accorded to educa- tion a new dimension and significance. As a result, a new perspective emerged in which high-level manpower came to be viewed es a key ingredient in the push for development. Higher Education was assigned the strategic task of producing the required high-level talents. A chief consequence of this policy assumption was a rapid expansion of education, particularly tertiary education, in most of the under- developed wibrld. In Southeast Asia, it is estimated that university enrolments more than doubled in the sixties wh:le expenditures increased even more rapidly. How- ever, educational expansion has not been accompanied or followed by income or employment growth in most of the countries. The average educational level of the unemployed appears to be rising, suggesting that educational expendituresmay be more consumption of scarce resources than investment in human resources. Failure breeds critics. Some argue that universities have failed to produce the requisite skills for the labour market by pointing to the predominance of arts and humanities graduates in university output, and to the differential employment pat- terns between arts and technically-oriented graduates. Further, they point out that those who do find jobs are frequently not working in occupations related or relevant to their education and training. Others argue that demand for university places has been increasing because of heavy state subsidization which leads to a divergence between private and social rates of return. The first set of critics recommendsa restructuring of university education, while the second advocates a great& sharing of total resource costs by students. The first recommendation assumes that the university is the appropriate place to generate market skills and presumessome ability on the part of universities to predict future skill requirements. The second is predicated on an economic diagnosis of the demand for university education. Before the relevance and implications of these policy proposals can be ----ekarrilne-crin-the-tonfeitrOtSbutheasrAsian universiffe-s, a detailed pictiire dine relationship between expansion in higher education and economic development needs to be developed. A knowledge of the determinants and consequences of university expansion therefore is required. We need to understand, for instance, the political imperatives that compel the growth of university systems, as well as the nature of private demand for higher education. We will have to assess also the labour market performance of university graduates and the roles they have played in promoting economic growth and transformation. For example, how does their experience compare with that of secondary school leavers and those who failed to get admission into college? If there is graduates unemployment, what are the un- derlying causes? Is it because graduates refuse to adjust their occupational as- pirations -to-the realities of the job market? And if they do adjust, does this mean they are engaged in jobs beneath their qualifications and hence underemployed? Further, if graduate unemployment and underemployment are rising, why is there nb reduction in the private demand for higher education? Is the divergence hypo- thesis put forward by Edwards and Todaro in their paper on educational supply in the context of growing unemployment in less developed countries the explanation -for the excess supply of graduates? If so, what are the feasiblepolicy instruments that can be manipulated to stem the private demand for highereducation? In short this research study is concerned with four key questions: (a) What are the social and economic forces that contribute to the rapid expansion of univer- sities in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore? (b) What