7.
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(b) that increases of salaries and wages, apart from
the high cost of living allowance, throughout the Colony are based on an acceptance of a permanently reduced purchasing power of money compared with that in years immediately preceding the war.
At the beginning of the 1951-52 Session the total of students in the University will probably have exceeded 700. In September last 248 students were admitted to first year classes though there are still schools that are not yet sending up pupils for the University admission examination. It is possible that entries in the next years will decrease but only slightly. Any fall in numbers that might follow the institution of a University of Malaya will probably be fully offset by the increased entries from the expanding secondary schools of the Colony. Fees having been increased to 50% above the 1941 level, the University by 1951-52 should have a fee income increased by about $200,000. Since the estimates for new appointments are based on the mid-point of the scales, whereas, in fact, most of the new men so far appointed have come in at the minimum, increased fee income and savings estimated on the current year's budget provision for salaries should provide a fund from which high cost of living allowances, which now total $230,000, may be met up to 1951. If these allowances have not ceased or are not greatly diminished by that date it will be necessary to regard allowances as a permanent charge and to be incorporated in salaries.
8.
This will be tantamount to an acceptance of a
permanent change in the value of money and would be a full justification for a further increase of fees to bring them to twice the pre- war level. The University should therefore still be able to raise the $170,000 necessary to be added to the sum of $340,000 derived from His Majesty's Government's grant in order to meet the cost of developments proposed as well as to make provision for the greater part of the cost of the high cost of living allowances that hereafter may be incorporated in salaries,
9.
It would be an advantage to the University, and not lacking justification, if the decision were made to increase fees by 100% in 1949. By this means the University might accumulate a useful sum towards the cost of the new departures in studies which will have to be faced when His Majesty's Government's grant is spent. But a proposal to increase fees beyond what immediately is necessary, and especially a proposal to raise funds now in order to create a fund for expenditure fifteen years hence would be very strongly resisted by members of the University Court and not solely by Chinese members. It is probable that such a proposal could be passed only by controlling the votes of officers of the University who are members of the Council.
10.
Minor adjustments arising from experience will have be made in the scheme of development but the general lines are likely to remain. The scheme requires the following additional staff :
to
4 Professors (only one, however, is entirely a new creation: two would be substituted for Readerships, the additional cost being £350 a year for each: one is transferred from Electrical Engineering to Architecture).
A further
7 Readers, of whom three would be honorary. Readership is desirable but the University's prospective income will not suffice to meet the
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