One of my undergraduate students asked me during the final lecture a few weeks ago. I replied, “I am still working. A lecturer is not like a teacher who is on leave during school holidays.” “Oh, really? I thought you were on break as well,” he continued. I always receive similar questions from students when the semester break is just around the corner. I never blame them; instead, I explain that there is a lot of work to do during students’ semester breaks. During lecture weeks, the focus is on updating lecture notes, teaching, implementing formative or ongoing assessments, and handling other tasks primarily related to teaching and learning. But of course, we still conduct research, publish, consult, and do other real work for lecturers. For example, at the beginning of the year, which coincides with lecture weeks, many agencies offer research grants to academics. Therefore, we must seize opportunities to apply for grants without jeopardising the quality of our lectures. However, those tasks are quite limited during lecture weeks, and the semester break is a great opportunity for us to resume them.

Many people assume that a lecturer’s job is only to teach in the classroom. In fact, lecturing is only part of an academic’s responsibilities. A lecturer needs to strategically divide their time among preparing lectures, supervising students, conducting research, writing journal articles, applying for grants, presenting at conferences, performing administrative duties, and serving the community. This balance not only determines individual performance but also influences the university’s position in global rankings. The study by Nasir et al. (2019) aimed to examine academics’ perceptions of the academic and non-academic responsibilities carried out at universities. It also examined the relationship between academics’ length of service and academic workload, as well as appointments to administrative positions. The study was conducted to provide an overview of how the responsibilities shouldered by lecturers affect their time distribution and workload, helping university management plan a more balanced distribution of tasks. The findings showed that most academics chose the teaching- and learning-based performance assessment route, allocating much of their working time to teaching rather than research, writing, supervision, and consultancy. Although academic responsibilities are the focus, non-academic responsibilities such as administrative positions, committee membership, and community service also require work beyond office hours and the completion of various administrative tasks. Correlation analysis also found that the longer an academic’s service, the higher the academic workload assigned and the greater the chance of appointment to administrative positions. This finding shows that more experienced academics tend to shoulder greater and more diverse responsibilities than their newer colleagues.

However, this cannot be the case at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), as it is one of Malaysia’s research universities. Research University (RU) is a special recognition conferred by Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) on public universities that demonstrate excellence in research, innovation, and postgraduate studies. This recognition was introduced to strengthen the competitiveness of local universities at the international level through the production of high-impact research, commercialisable innovations, and the development of highly skilled human capital. In this regard, research universities place great emphasis on Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programmes, with a high ratio of postgraduate to undergraduate students. In addition to receiving large research grant allocations from the government and industry to support strategic research projects, research universities also require their academics to produce publications in high-impact journals indexed by international databases such as Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). These institutions also emphasise the commercialisation of research results through the issuance of patents, the development of innovative products, and the creation of spin-off companies. To ensure that academic and research excellence can be maintained, research universities also have a higher percentage of lecturers with PhD qualifications and professors, who support advanced research supervision and knowledge development.

So, my dear students, we are working as usual, but do not worry. If we feel exhausted, we are given annual leave. We work to ensure we deliver the best to our clients, who are students, industries, and, of course, societies. UTM’s motto, “In the Name of God for Mankind,” is our DNA to make sure what we do benefits mankind. Happy semester break, students!

By Assoc. Prof. Dr. Abdul Halim Abdullah, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)