30% equity for tuition centres detrimental to students, ministry and national policy

In an update to the education ministry's guidelines for tuition centres, Section 6.3.2 now demands a minimum 30% Bumiputera equity ownership and 100% Malaysian citizen ownership for Sdn Bhd and enterprise registered centres. Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan, who previously held this stance, now worries that this new regulation may have detrimental impacts on students and the overall national policy.

Kamalanathan, who previously emphasized the importance of regulatory standards for teaching quality, teacher qualifications, and affordability, now suggests a more pragmatic approach to increasing Bumiputera participation in the education sector. He proposes enabling measures such as easing access to training, financing, and premises for Bumiputera educators to open new centres rather than forcing existing centres to dilute their equity.

Kamalanathan highlights potential negative consequences of the new regulation, including retroactive equity restructuring violating legitimate expectations, pushing the sector underground, contradicting previous national policies, negatively affecting Bumiputera students, and being unviable for franchise and branch expansions. He also mentions that the education ministry's private education division is already overwhelmed with its existing responsibilities, making audit of shareholding and beneficial ownership a challenging task.

Instead, Kamalanathan advocates for utilizing procurement-linked incentives, such as the ministry's own programs aimed at supporting Bumiputera teachers and scholarships for Bumiputera students, to achieve real education equity.