KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 — Local public universities have never sidelined junior academics nor is there an entrenched patronage system as alleged by a returned scientist formerly with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), the Education Ministry (MoE) said today.
In fact, the ministry said Wan Ardatul Amani Wan Salim benefited financially from some of the schemes introduced in 2013 to help young lecturers advance their academic careers.
“Dr Wan Ardatul Armani has applied and received grants from MoE under various schemes,” the ministry said in a statement to Malay Mail in response to an earlier report on the scientist’s gripe.
The grants for the former Nasa scientist amounted to RM285,100 in several applications between 2014 and 2017, and were approved under two separate funds — the Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (RAGS), and the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS).
The FRGS provides grants up to RM250,000. The ministry also listed three other funding available to junior academics: the Prototype Research Grant Scheme for amounts up to RM500,000; the Transdisciplinary Research Grant Scheme for up to RM1.5 million; and the biggest endowment of them all called the Long Term Research Grant Scheme up to RM3 million a year.
The ministry also listed two other allocations it developed for young academics: Research Acculturation Collaborative Effort and Research Acculturation for Early Career Researchers.
“MoE would like to stress categorically that public universities never practise patronage system in approving research grants or financial assistance. Nevertheless, her enthusiasm is a breath of fresh air.
“Being a star researcher coming home with high expectations and hopes, one can truly understand the frustrations she felt when not given the appropriate support,” it added.
The ministry also noted that local universities also have their internal mechanism and funding to support their staff’s work, and cited the case of Nur Adlyka Ainul Annuar, the young Malaysian scientist behind the discovery of the supermassive black hole at the University of Durham, who was granted a post as a senior lecturer (with a special grade) in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to carry on her research.
The ministry said such grants were similar in nature, that is to encourage publication output, talents and creation of intellectual properties to drive the country’s economy forward and were not meant to overlap with funding schemes from other ministries.
“With the new initiatives being put forth by MoE at the national level, it is indeed our fervent hope that our universities will aptly encourage and assist their young star lecturers like in the case of Dr Armani to achieve their goals in life as a successful researcher who will continue to bring fame to Malaysia in the future,” the ministry said.
In an interview with Malay Mail published Sunday, Wan Ardatul, 41, claimed of an existing patronage system, where seniority or one’s extended network trumps talent in the race for federal grants.
The full-time lecturer at the International Islamic University of Malaysia claimed that the patronage system was deeply entrenched even one year after Pakatan Harapan took government with its promised sweeping education reform.
The electrical engineer said the systemic discrimination is evident from how the Education Ministry formulates the grant scheme itself, and said young researchers like her were sidelined due to the red tapes that enables favouritism in the grant system.
Wan Ardatul led a team of 28 scientists, technologists and engineers, to work on Nasa’s maiden astrobiology programme dubbed “SporeSet”.
