During an interview on the "Direct Line to Government House" programme on Channel 11 and Public Relations Department radio stations, Wijit emphasised that autonomous universities were government-owned agencies but with more independence - unlike state enterprises or public and private agencies. They would have more flexibility in administration and academic freedom, he said.

Reacting to people's worries that, once they became autonomous, the government would only partially fund the universities, leading to higher tuition fees, Wijit said that they were state agencies to provide educational services to people, thus the government would ensure the change would not affect service users or students.

The objective of university autonomy was not to make them earn money, he said, and added the government would provide sufficient funds if they had expenses and could not find additional money. There were already six autonomous universities and they had not raised tuition fees to the point that it hurt poor people, he said.

Besides, there were measures to help the poor including free scholarships from universities, scholarships from the private sector, student loans and part-time job finding services, he said. He did not want people to worry too much about the tuition fees because the government is in control of the matter.

"If there were complaints about a tuition-fee increase and the government found it was affecting a majority of the people, the ministry would propose to the Cabinet that it stop the increase. The university will have to obey such a Cabinet resolution and could not overprice itself," he said.

Wijit dismissed concerns that autonomy might lead to the selling of degrees, saying it was unlikely, as independent universities would provide good-quality education with able and academically excellent lecturers.