Modelling Waqf Performance and Governance for Public Universities in Malaysia

Abstract

Islamic philanthropy in Malaysian education system has been well rooted in religion-based traditional educational institutions. Currently, Waqf and Endowment (WAE) grow rapidly at higher education institutions as an income generation and a long-term financial sustainability initiative. The initiative is as a result of budget cut by 20 percent for public universities since 2016 and 2017 but no raise in fee is allowed. This initiative is in line to recommendation in the University Transformation Programme (UniTP), Purple Book shift No 5, the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education). Being a non-profit organization, the performance of WAE in Malaysian public universities is expected to be different as compared to commercial entities. The importance of having WAE performance measurement may include the economy, effectiveness and efficiency aspects of its activities towards the intended objectives. The method of the study is based on documents review on performance although the literatures on WAE performance measurement in higher education institution is still lacking. As such, the need to develop a holistic model that covers both aspect of performance measurement and good governance are required consistent with the vision of establishment of WAE to act as one of a perpetual financial source for universities. Hence, this research aimed to propose Waqf Performance Measurement and Governance Model used to evaluate WAE’s reliability and performance in Malaysian public universities. Future research is required to test and verify this model on the initial sample from waqf institutes in public universities. The expected finding of this study is this model can become as a main reference in measuring the performance of WAE in Malaysian public universities embedded with good governance principles, that could result the positive implications in strengthening the WAE’s credibility and stakeholder confidence for universities financial sustainability.