Malaysian Public Higher Education Institutions: Efficiency and Productivity Changes by Mad Ithnin Salleh

The efficiency and productivity of the higher education sector play crucial roles in the development and growth of a nation, both as a major source of human capital and as a main driver of the knowledge economy. During the last decade, the Malaysian government has placed greater emphasis on productivity improvement in the public higher education sector as means of promoting the development of quality human capital. This sector has undergone some fundamental changes, which have led to its rapid expansion. This book employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) and Hicks-Moorsteen Index (HMI) which are non-parametric approaches to analyse the efficiency and productivity changes of Malaysian public higher education institution from the year 2006 to 2009. The empirical result shows Universiti Sains Malaysia (a research based university), Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris and Universiti Malaysia Pahang (both are focused universities) have consistently exhibit high efficiency levels relative to other higher education institutions in Malaysia. Interestingly, the empirical findings seem to suggest that the Malaysia public higher education institutions’ efficiency levels significantly improved after the implementation of National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESP) in 2007-2008.