KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Higher Education has drawn up a programme related to selecting candidates to do their Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Deputy Minister Datuk Idris Haron said the programme may be known as the Ministry of Higher Education Scholarship.

He said this in reply to a supplementary question by Datuk Lee Chee Leong (BN-Kampar) who wanted to know what criteria was used to select university lecturers who would be given scholarships specially to do their PhD at local or foreign universities.

While answering Lee's original question, Idris said the 60 per cent target of having persons with PhDs as lecturers could only be achieved by 2013 by the latest through the ministry's sponsorship programme.

"Right now, 6.666 lecturers or 31.6 per cent of lecturers had PhD qualification and based on this performance the ministry expects that figure to stretch to 10,065 lecturers or 47.7 per cent by 2010. (Bernama)