PUTRAJAYA, 1 December 2015 – Universities at present, need to be open to welcome discussions, need to continue in allowing and encouraging minds to enquire, need to innovate and create, need to reduce the inequity divide, need to ensure accessibility to higher education and need to play a major role in the commercialisation of ideas. 

Ideas which have the potential to be commercialised include the talents, publications, intellectual property, training, consultations and contract researches. 

This was stated by the Director-General of the Higher Education Department, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Professor Dato' Dr. Asma Ismail during her plenary session as the speaker for the International Conference on Knowledge Transfer (ICKT), held at the Marriott Hotel in Putrajaya. 

Asma said that, if we want to be relevant, we need to provide solutions to reduce the inequity divide, to provide benefits to the nation, to publish in indexed journals and to have reasonably budgeted investments. 

"The future generation of Malaysians in this country would comprise of those having characteristics of good citizenry in wealth creation (entrepreneurial) and also in enhancing the well-being of society (knowledge transfer)," she said. 

Added Asma, in short, there is a need to bring back the soul to the Malaysian education system, by developing learned and value-driven talents and move from describing students as human capital to treating them as human beings (talents). 

Current trends in higher education involved the academia, community, industry and government. 

"In relation to the community, universities are expected to transform themselves, from being the ivory towers into the laboratories for the community and the aim is for the universities to practice knowledge transfer and to be able to enhance the well-being of the society. 

"The strategies to achieve all of these are by strengthening collaborations through a whole-society approach, developing social-financial model and finally by promoting higher order thinking skills to develop a more dynamic society," emphasised Asma. 

ICKT is to be held from 1st until 3rd December 2015.