Introduction

Public universities are being owned and operated by Government and the strategic objectives of the public universities will be in line with those of Ministry of Higher Education. One of the MOHE’s objectives is to enhance the overall capability of the universities to produce human capital with first class mentality and to become more dynamic, competitive, and able to face the challenges of a changing world.

Basically, the 20 full-fledged universities are further divided into three (3) groups i.e. four research, four comprehensive and 12 focused universities. Currently, as much as 90% of the public universities’ funding is from government sources and the balance of 10% is derived from student fees. In 2007, the government has the operating budget of more than RM6 billion to fund the universities and the amount may increase due to upgrading of the four institutions into research universities.

All applications to study in public universities are centrally processed with the exception of postgtraduate studies. The centralised processing agency is known as the Bahagian Pengurusan Kemasukan Pelajar (BPKP) or The Division of Student Admission (formerly known as Unit Pusat Universiti, UPU). It processes applications from students with SPM, STPM, STAM, diploma or matriculation qualifications. The agency is under The Department of Higher Education (Jabatan Pengajian Tinggi) of the Ministry of Higher Education and is responsible for the management of the admission of students into the 20 public universities.

However BPKP is not involved in managing the intake of the following categories of students into public universities and as such these groups of students are required to contact the individual public universities directly. The students involved here are:

-Foreign students

-Students who undertake programmes conducted via the Distance Learning     -- Education mode or programmes being offered at Certificate level

 students of franchised programmes conducted at private higher edu. institutions.