The Higher Education Ministry will see heavy cuts to its funding under Budget 2016.

According to the Federal Expenditure Estimates, the Higher Education Ministry's allocation will be slashed by a whopping RM2.4 billion.

Under Budget 2016, the Higher Education Ministry will only receive RM13.378 billion (5.0 percent of the national budget) compared to RM15.785 billion (5.8 percent) in Budget 2015.

This is the deepest cut for the ministry since the prime minister tabled his first budget in 2010.

This is also the smallest allocation in terms of proportion of the national budget this ministry will receive since Najib became prime minister.

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Under the government's plan to give public universities more autonomy, varsities are already encouraged to seek out their own funding for research activities.

It is unclear if the deep cut will affect the intake of university students next year.

When broken down, the operations expenditure is RM11.767 billion (87.96 percent), compared to the development expenditure of RM1.611 billion (12.04 percent).

With a development expenditure of 12.04 percent, it is at the lowest level under Najib's tenure.

Development expenditure for the Higher Education Ministry was at 34.55 percent when Najib tabled his first budget but it has been on a downtrend ever since.

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