The Parallel Pathway vs Master’s War: Clash of the Titans Part 3Till mid 1990s, there were only 3 universities offering medical program: UM, UKM and USM. UPM started somewhere around 1996. Thus, the number of training post under the local Master’s program were small and limited. The “parallel pathway” was still the main pathway of someone becoming a specialist. Our father of privatization aka pirate-tisation, Dr […]
Till mid 1990s, there were only 3 universities offering medical program: UM, UKM and USM. UPM started somewhere around 1996. Thus, the number of training post under the local Master’s program were small and limited. The “parallel pathway” was still the main pathway of someone becoming a specialist.
Our father of privatization aka pirate-tisation, Dr M decided that it is time to pass the buck to the private sector aka make someone rich. Thus, he tabled the Private Higher Education and Institution Act in 1996 and got it approved. Prior to this, there were no private institution of higher learning in Malaysia offering their own degree program. There were some private colleges offering programs with collaboration with foreign universities. The best example would be law colleges running programs for University of London etc. This is similar to the medical parallel pathway. Trained here but sit for foreign exams. Courses are coordinated by the respective foreign universities.
What happened in 1996?
PHEIA 1996 was passed in Parliament, opening doors for private universities and university colleges. This allowed private universities to run their own program and offer their own degree. The 1st private medical college was IMU and subsequently tonnes of new medical colleges were formed till 2016. I don’t have to write about these issues anymore as I have written about it gazillion number of times.
Till 1996, all public higher education were under MOE. Thus, the quality of education is usually handled by the university themselves with MOE at the background. As far as I am aware, there were no formal accreditation process.
LAN Act 1996
Lembaga Akreditasi Negara(LAN) was formed together with PHEIA Act to monitor and accreditate all educational programmes offered by both public and private higher education. These acts were passed together. Basically, LAN is the quality controller and degree recogniser. When this act was debated in Parliament, there were heated debate when it came to professional courses (by opposition members). What is the role of MMC in recognising a medical degree when it is LAN which will decide the degree that is going to be recognised by the government etc? When LAN act was passed, it made LAN as the sole body to accreditate a degree which is then officially recognised by JPA and any other government body. This is also needed for scholarships and PTPTN, which was introduced at the same time.
Obviously, debate is just a debate in the Parliament as the ruling government had 2/3 majority and can pass any law. LAN Act went through, and this caused a massive headache to MMC. MMC was still a body under KKM. MMC power to recognise a degree has now been taken away by LAN as far as Malaysia is concerned.
Joint Technical Committee 1999 (JTC)
As per our Malaysia boleh style, people who create laws never look at the implications and contradiction with other laws which eventually will lead to chaos. The then DG of Health had various discussion about this and finally came up with JTC. JTC was formed in 1999 which is basically a joint technical committee which consist of MMC, MOE, LAN and JPA members. It is chaired by MMC and the purpose is to advise LAN on accreditation of medical courses. The whole idea of this is to avoid any conflict between LAN and MMC. Our DG did not want a situation where LAN accreditates a medical programme, but MMC refuse to recognise the degree. This was formed outside of the LAN Act.
Malaysian Qualification Agency ACT 2007
By 2007, our government decided to amend the LAN Act 1996 and renamed it MQA Act 2007 which still stands as of today. When MQA Act was formed, the JTC was included into the act under Section 51 & 52. For all professional courses, the JTC is formed by the respective professional legislative body to advise MQA on the accreditation process. Thus, it is the duty of JTC to advise MQA whether the degree/programme can be accredited and if not, to provide valid reasons why it can’t be accredited. The reasons will then be forwarded to the respective universities to rectify and to be reassessed later. The power to issue the certificate of accreditation solely lies with MQA. Since the JTC is formed by respective professional body aka MMC, you cannot say that you will not recognise the degree when you’re the same body who advised MQA to accreditate the programme.
The process of accreditation.
All programmes conducted by any higher education need to be accredited by MQA. The license to start a programme/university/university colleges is issued by MOE. Once they receive the license to start, the respective universities must apply to MQA for accreditation. These programmes will be given provisional accreditation by MQA if they fulfill the start-up criteria. A full accreditation is only given when the 1st batch reaches the final year. So, basically the 1st few batches are taking a risk enrolling into a provisionally accredited program. Also, if MQA failed to accreditate the program at final year, the parents will be at the throats of the university, MQA and MMC. So, we all know what the final outcome is going to be. It is very rare for MQA not to accreditate a local program, eventually.
Accreditation of Master’s and Parallel pathway
So, after all these came about, all local institution’s educational program must be accredited by MQA. The local medical Master’s program have to undergo the same process. Local Master’s program also has open system for their candidates, which uses KKM hospitals as training centres since early 2000. I have written about post graduate education in Malaysia many years ago under my step-by-step series.
However, the parallel pathway does not need to do this as KKM is not a higher educational institute. KKM is a service provider. The previous DG had mentioned before that parallel pathway do not need MQA accreditation as the exams they are sitting is well known exams conducted by mainly UK and Ireland colleges which have been conducting these exams all over the world for many years. Most of the degrees offered by these colleges are recognised by KKM for almost 60 years and eventually NSR. So, under Section 14B(c), it is categorised as recognised specialist qualification.
This same rule applies for subspeciality programmes where almost all of it are done in KKM hospitals and some in university hospitals with no master’s programme available except for select few, which is now the source of the problem……
Next…….. the current issue, why it is happening and the hidden agenda……….
Source:
The Parallel Pathway vs Master’s War: Clash of the Titans Part 3
