Universities Should Take Up Combating Social Ills - Sultan Of Perak

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- Sultan Nazrin Shah, the Sultan of Perak, Malaysia wants institutions of higher learning to be sensitive in their observation and understanding to seek solutions and correct social shortcomings besetting the community now. He said to address these social problems, the country needed citizens with moral values and a strong sense of civic consciousness. "Social ills in the society needed to be handled wisely by balancing between individualism with the competitive nature of society while underlining the spirit of cooperation and social responsibility," he said when speaking at the 55th Convocation of Universiti Malaya here Saturday. Sultan Nazrin said the progress of a nation depended on three important elements namely new findings, trained human resources as well as expert knowledge with universities playing the role as a source of providing these three elements. Modern universities in post industry era are institutional centres as well as a primary instrument to determine the level of development achieved in a society," he said. Sultan Nazrin said in formulating and implementing programmes to develop human resource, universities should not forget the basic education philosophy, which is holy and sacred as the concept of producing knowledgeable people is wide and deep compared to the concept of providing the people with limited knowledge and information. He said a human is only complete with his level of knowledge when equipped with moral and civility among men and towards other living things including plants and animals. There are more moral weaknesses and spiritual emptiness taking place and even more worrying is that they included those educated with knowledge, comprising graduates with high degrees and holding important posts, he said. "Corruption, breach of trust, abuse of power, favouritism, fraud, were reported to be due to moral decay. The race for worldy gains has made humans to become too materialistic. "Hold firmly on to holy religious values and noble cultural values," he said. In this regard, Sultan Nazrin said graduates who had acquired knowledge should be equipped with noble moral values so as not to be a slave to desire. He said UM which is now 111 years old, had succeeded in fulfilling its role to provide higher education to people of various religions, races and backgrounds to attain success. He said the relationship between university and the community was constantly being strengthened and the expertise of the university had been mobilised to assist the people and government. -- BERNAMA