Restorative Quality Assessment of Academic - An Islamic Motivation for Circular Nation-Building

A circular nation-building initiative emphasising zero-dysfunctionality is an urgent step to restore national education. The nose-diving performance in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA 2022, is a wake-up call to power up the people manning the education sector. The study analysed and identified the alarming situations signalling the urgent need for rectification based on the empirical data acquired over 30 years. The analysis points to evidence of fake claims of performance in academia as the main hub of human resource development and the primary factor that shadows the loopholes of education quality. Springboarding from there, the study recommends steps for the betterment of the sector. Qualitative assessment of academic staff via restorative assessment (RES-Q) measure assimilating the functional from the dysfunctional academics is the identified first step. Functionality, in this regard, is defined by the functions aligned to the fulfilment of national needs. Local universities' declining popularity prompted RES-Q map construction for root cause-to-solution to uplift the education sector. Detailing educator assessment needs leads to RES-Q inquisitive analysis to detect and fix issues without derailing from the national strategic alignment (NSA). Deploying RES-Q today should empower educators and in turn, revive learners’ interests in tertiary education. Through the corrected cycle of critical mass, the reshuffling of academics based on their dominant strengths must be pursued. The talent appropriation strategy is commensurate with the gratefulness in Islamic morality that simultaneously forbids the waste of resources.

to power up the people manning the education sector.The study analysed and identified the alarming situations signalling the urgent need for rectification based on the empirical data acquired over 30 years.The analysis points to evidence of fake claims of performance in academia as the main hub of human resource development and the primary factor that shadows the loopholes of education quality.Springboarding from there, the study recommends steps for the betterment of the sector.Qualitative assessment of academic staff via restorative assessment (RES-Q) measure assimilating the functional from the dysfunctional academics is the identified first step.Functionality, in this regard, is defined by the functions aligned to the fulfilment of national needs.Local universities' declining popularity prompted RES-Q map construction for root cause-tosolution to uplift the education sector.Detailing educator assessment needs leads to RES-Q inquisitive analysis to detect and fix issues without derailing from the national strategic alignment (NSA).Deploying RES-Q today should empower educators and in turn, revive learners' interests in tertiary education.Through the corrected cycle of critical mass, the reshuffling of academics based on their dominant strengths must be pursued.The talent appropriation strategy is commensurate with the gratefulness in Islamic morality that simultaneously forbids the waste of resources.

Circular Nation-Building
Typical of a linear system, wastes symbolise inefficiency given their dysfunctionality and fate for disposal.Numerous industrial systems today are configured to go circular, ensuring materials flow in a closed loop (Morales et al., 2022), with all waste becoming a commodity.In the synonymously "circular economy" (Pena et al., 2020), the once 'wastes' are commodity feedstocks of a different process line integrated into the parent production or in total isolation.Rerouting waste to a functionality leads to "circularity" or a resource-efficient operation system.As waste symbolises inefficiency, circularity embeds the notion of zero waste (Ghazali & Zbiec, 2022;

Academic Circularity
Non-circularity in academia arises from various forms of dysfunctionality.Lack of focus on academic grooming, which hampers graduates' quality (not at par with other graduates in the academic stream) is one of the concerning issues.As a result, graduates work in fields that do not require their degree qualification.At times, degree holders earn less than the high school leavers.Employability is also the gauge for success of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs.A TVETian is successful when recommended for a permanent post by the company offering an internship.In Malaysia TVET programmes place specific targets for graduates to be entrepreneurs or job providers, land high-income jobs, and pursue higher degree or professional qualifications.The record shows that the outcome was plausibly achieved by devoted educators, implying the prominence of outcome-focused educators' functionality in transforming students into competitively skilled workers.
Non-circularity attributable to academic dishonesty discredits the higher education institution (HEI).In developed nations, publicising misconduct is a norm and a declaration of disfavour.Tsing Hua University, ranked 12th in the World University Ranking (THE, 2024), sets high standards for graduation, deploying punitive actions against plagiarists (Shuo, 2019).Early this year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Harvard professors were under the spotlight.To spell out policy clearly and protect the credibility of the renowned talent hubs, the cases were made globally public (WION, 2024).The exemplary actions suggest the institution's enforcement of ethics to engender quality education.Neglecting ethics will not only hamper graduates' quality but a potential shock of economic impairment given the intersected nature of the education and economy of a country.
Earlier intervention through students and entry-level academic reskilling was recommended to stop misconduct at the doorstep of the HEIs.Pulling shadow performers a step back prevents misconduct propagation (Ghazali & Fadzlee, 2024).Such intervention sheds light on reviving and sustaining the sector's splendour, taking off from the concerning collapse depicted on PISA2022 results (OECD, 2023) -a useful calibration tool for educators.Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia join the declining global trend in Science, Mathematics, and Reading, distancing themselves further from Singapore, Brunei, and Turkiye (OECD, 2023).Of no coincidence, the Times Higher Education ranking (THER) hints at the paralysing HEIs, implying middle-aged adults' credibility in grooming PISA2022 teens intellectually.
The study formulates the qualitative assessment of academic targeting restoration of quality (RES-Q) system as remedial actions to fix the longstanding issues described in the literature (Panda & Kekre, 2013;Zejno, 2018;Ghazali & Aziz, 2021;Awani, 2024;WION, 2024).As a preparative restoration step, RES-Q defines, detects, and fixes the issues by talent-to-sector match by first screening the academic-fit candidates.Through RES-Q we visualise the possible countermeasures and assess the required academic skillset to engender conducive learning.The sections that follow reason and detail the processes, leading to the expected outcome.The methodology leading to the RES-Q map and assessment elements is described in the subsequent section.

Capturing the HEI Unpopularity Factor
News broadcasts and journal articles laying the reasons for school leavers to refuse university enrolments were the selected references tied to the HEI's declining popularity.
Mixed qualitative and quantitative analyses of students' learning goals and understanding of academic misconduct (dissimilar in pattern from PIN intervention (Ghazali & Aziz, 2021)) further assisted the authors' analysis of youths' lived reality concerning education.Also captured were the brain-drain issues involving Malaysians opting to work in foreign HEIs.Where relevant, the authors captured Quranic instructions, warnings, and punishments related to misappropriation.
The study also incorporates neuropsychological theories and religious deliberations on ill behaviours slipping as a culture that has served as a lifeline to other gains at work.

Qualitative Meanings
OECD (2023) results on the PISA2022 performance of 29 nationals occupying the higher percentile scoring in mathematics were used as creativity, logical, and problem-solving fronts of the intellectual indicator.In total, the PISA ranking of 29 countries (Figure 1) in the upper percentile was scrutinised for their counteractive strategies when a plagiarism case was brought to the judiciary hearings.

Results and Discussion
Making the upper percentile in the PISA2022 are countries with universities in the Top 100 Times Higher Education ranking (THER).Among these, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Lithuania, Germany, and Australia were the countries strictly acting on academic misconduct of various forms.Publicising the plagiarism cases, for instance, has signalled a clear opposition towards academic misconduct, and the punitive actions serve well in ensuring education quality.Counteracting academic cheating is also symbolic of leadership, acting beyond mere policy but walking the talk while ensuring the exemplary figure to man the HEI and rightful graduates are generated in the HEI culture.
In the reference book of Islam, the Holy Quran, misappropriation in the form of stealing (cheating, ditto) carries several mentions.Verse 188 in Ali Imran has close relevance to plagiarism, known for its Latin roots, "plagarius" or stealing.Quranic verse: "Do not those who rejoice in their misdeeds and love to be praised (take credit) for what they have not done."Extended by Divine disapproval, "Think not they can escape the penalty -for them is a penalty grievous indeed" Q. 3:188 (Ali, 1988)  The punitive measure suggests that Islam does not overlook moral training as a factor in the development of character (Figure 3) but complements crime with adequate punishment to prevent the propagation and emergence of a corrupt society (Shirazi, 2024).The developed nations' punitive measures against academic misconduct effectively uplift intellectual standing by promoting academic honesty.Broadcasting plagiarism cases serves as a precautionary measure, which in a way prevents others from committing academic misconduct.However, neither religious warning nor the publicised high-profile academic crime had stopped misconduct in the country, resulting in varied meanings and distortion of the academic transcript.In its entirety, the phenomenon creates workplace conflict and emotional distress (Terry College of Business [TCB], 2024).

Trending Practices and Losses
Academic cheating involving data falsification and contract cheating by graduate students resulting in huge losses could have been curbed by thorough supervision.Falsified data, for instance, caused irreversible economic loss (Osman & Qutayan, 2023;Patrinos et al., 2024), leading to the bankruptcy of the technology or product licensee.In this regard, a thorough check on output validity followed by work retractions could rule out project commercialisation failures in various ways (Marcus, 2024).Contract cheating is a damaging practice that does not produce graduates of expected skills as students escape the painstaking neuro (problem-solving skill) enhancement task.While supervisors adopting contract cheating tend to approve students hiring ghost authors to write their thesis, playing an ethical role of forbidding contract cheating can result in unpopularity, putting decent academics at a crossroads.Awareness of the prominent learning milestone from writing (Schmidt, 1999;Rahmat 2020;Khairuddin et al., 2021) must be communicated to all stakeholders to ensure the achievement of the desired outcome.Bypassing the milestone could decapacitate the education system.Outcomes surfacing as low achievement in such calibrated metrics as THE ranking and OECD's PISA correlating with a stunted economy are clear prompts for actions.Not acting means allowing waste (of human talent), which is also strictly forbidden in the Divine teaching as I 2024 JULY I GJAT ISSN: 2232-0474 I E-ISSN: 2232-0482 http://jurnal.usas.edu.my/gjat/index.php/journalilluminated in the Quranic verse 17:27, "Those who waste excessively are brothers to the devils, and the devil was to his Lord a rejecter (the ungrateful)".
In essence, poor law enforcement, unthorough supervision, negligence of academic dos and don'ts as well as disconnection from religious teachings leading to prioritising personal interest over nation-building are among the factors for approving academic cheating.Denying the relationship between the Quranic warning to the present situation allows one to freely engage in academic misconduct and regard plagiarising as part of the process to succeed.As educators adopt the same thinking, plagiarism sips into academia, allowing students to enculturate the practice to easily graduate and establish a good life without observing ethics.Such mechanism of academic misconduct propagation contaminates the educational institutions involving homes, schools, and higher learning institutions.Bypassing the learning process produces underperforming graduates with poor problem-solving skills (Harangus, 2019;Harangus, 2021;Rahmat, 2020), and lacking knowledge on grooming the next generation.The system becomes decapacitated as the number of dysfunctional educators manning the education sector increases.Worst is the masking of the issue through the present quantitative system for academic assessment -recognising output count despite unknown contributions and illegitimate processes.The proceeding section recommends a qualitative assessment of academics to restore academic honesty, its impression, and ultimately, the economy.

Restorative Academic Assessment (RES-Q)
False claims in the curriculum vitae can be screened through a qualitative academic assessment exercise (RES-Q).In RES-Q, the desired manpower is defined by the skills, traits, and devotion needed to counteract the reasons for SPM leavers to refuse HEI reported in the national news (Li, 2023;Shahabudin, 2023;Yusuf et al., 2024).The captured factors (teal) are presented in Figure 4.In essence, poor law enforcement, unthorough supervision, negligence of academic dos-and-don'ts, and disconnection from religious teachings leading to prioritising personal interest above nation-building are among the factors for approving academic cheating.Denying the relationship between the Quranic warning and the present situation allows one to freely engage in academic misconduct and regard plagiarising as part of the process to succeed.As educators adopt the same thinking, plagiarism sips into academia, allowing students to enculturate the practice to swiftly graduate and establish a good life without observing ethics.Such misconduct propagation mechanism contaminates the educational institutions encompassing homes, schools, and higher learning institutions.Bypassing the correct learning process produces underperforming graduates with poor problem-solving skills (Harangus, 2019;Rahmat, 2020;Harangus, 2021), and lacking knowledge on grooming the next generation.The system is paralysed as the dysfunctional educators operating the education sector boom.Worst is the masking of the issue through the present quantitative system for academic assessment -recognising output count despite unknown contributions and illegitimate processes.The proceeding section recommends a qualitative assessment system for academics to restore academic honesty, its impression, and, ultimately, the economy.
The issues related to learning at the degree level (Figure 4, teal 4-point explosion) are in many ways fixable (Figure 4, purple oval).Of primary concern over the HEI academic stream (Figure 4 (C)) is the set of educator-related issues.HEI educators' inadequate mastery of teaching materials (Shahabudin, 2023) and uncontrolled misconduct are issues to resolve before HEI can attract enrolments.Substance mastery and misconduct often went unnoticed due to an absence of such assessments as quality accreditation and promotion exercises.The situation triggered student dissatisfaction, which spread by word of mouth.Considering learner assessment, learning satisfaction can be improved through individual assessment, reducing group work until an individual is sufficiently equipped with academic skills.In robust practices, group work is only in effect in the advanced semesters after preparing students to master the substance and skills to partake as active team players.
On course and educator evaluation fronts, students' evaluation can serve as a guide, but not without validation by showing evidence.The requirement aims to stop the growing acts of sabotage and disinformation among students.If caught, students must be held accountable and called for disciplinary action.Likewise, cues for students' satisfaction (Figure 5) must be tangibly valued by recognising the teacher as an incentive to continue the pursuit of nation-building.In all cases, the truth needs to be revealed, crossreferencing also to the explanation from the teachers.Students' learning skills and university readiness also need assessment.The two-sided scrutiny is not only important in doing justice (Thomlinson, 2022) to the system but also to the public as stakeholders and taxpayers alike.Such assessment allows teachers to see the fronts needing improvement as much as allowing students to master learning.Through RES-Q, academic misconduct is tracked.Table 1 recommends the inquisitive analysis related to the nature of the presented curriculum vitae.Despite indicative of academic skills, the publication bucket is most susceptible to cosmetic impressions.False reflection of the academic occurs with a "false" authorship claim.Thus, assessment of the processes involved in the publication is mandatory.Validation can be based on the routing of knowledge, at best, towards student empowerment -evidence of the knowledge masterpiece landing as learning materials.Further inquisitive analysis via Q&A and assessment of expertise (Table 1, A) would guarantee the skills required in the execution of research and dissemination of the outcome to the registered learners as the principal stakeholders.

Success
in capturing academic functionality would ultimately realise the ideal learning goals (sense of safety, satisfaction, intellectual empowerment, employability, global relevance, and growth) in Figure 4.These goals can only be enforced by educators with literacy skill pivoting around the fundamental excellent reading and comprehension.As the outcome has proven the damaging effects of the abovementioned longstanding quantitative staff assessment, it is mandatory to design a qualitative yardstick for gauging an educator's functionality.Taking account of the offers in Figure 5, Tables 1, 2, and 3 lists the questions capturing the traits of a favourable educator to empower the system through research publications.
Posing the right question allows the detection of mastery, impartial contribution, or fake claims.The recommended RES-Q offline inquiry allows identification and screening for skills and tasks for the empowerment of HEI.The reason for offline mode is to rule out cheating.Along the inquiry process, we could detect loopholes, unskilled workers who need to be reshuffled to a more suitable portfolio not requiring a distinguishing literacy skill.Clarity of thought on the lived reality and passion to see improvement of the sector for nation-building will shape a better work ethic.

Post-Enquiry Actions
The portion of dysfunction exceeding 50% may set the point for program review.Decision on program closure or a combination of programs to offer students better infrastructure may be the necessary required steps.Retaining the program requires proactive acts like hunting for excellent Malaysians studying in the developed country to work in the local HEI with the clear primary mission of rectifying the work culture that embraces great values.
When staff are seen offering gifts to their immediate superior in situations like B in Table 1, personal advice must be provided instead of grabbing the opportunity to free ride.The role of an academic holding an administration position must be checked.The situation is under control when swift cleansing and preventative measures are in place.Assessors themselves need training on misconduct terminology.Features to be proven as a booster or damaging to the education sector must first be clearly defined.
Forming the grey area is educators as mentors and educators as mentees.While university survival should depend on a staff's ability to work independently, support from mentors may be negative or positive.While a positive from the amounts of exposure is typical of great mentors, negative mentors ensure every step is to abide by, and fixed protocol may decapacitate the system.
Victimisation of talents along the grooming process can be captured by assessing an academic understanding of mentoring (A in Table 2), which should work as professional scaffolding rather than handholding or an unthinkable suppression.

A-Mentorship
Questions for candidates with a mentor as a guide 1. Enquire about the mentor's contribution in the making of the candidate 2. How much guidance was given and how much self-discovery was made? 3. How would academic life be without a mentor?Strength Replication Mentor scaffolds (Kamaruddin et al., 2021;Feng et al., 2024).Mentors are not supposed to impose nepotism (Myint 2005;Annuar, 2024)  B-Mentoring Students and Postdocs 1.How many have you mentored to achieve the extraordinary?Define "extraordinary".2. How did you harvest the idea (for the mentee)? 3. Describe the 'extraordinary'.4. How frequently were you consulted?What were the questions posed by the confidant?5. Any false credit along the way to mentee success?6. Check for unacknowledged informal mentorship.7. What was the highest quality advice offered to the mentee?
Handholding is discredited as it forms barriers to growth (Sagar, 2015) and resilience.
Further Check:  Postdoc supervision skills. Postdocs magnetise students as students could relax from thinking in problem-solving situations. Locus of productivity or paralysis. Bribery pattern through gift exchange.
Failure to scaffold leads to continuous dependency on supervisors, ineffective skill grooming, and knowledge transfer.A predictor of the failure is the continuous 'networking' as the reason for a name to be included in a publication, analogous to passive KPI income.
Selected academics are given the extra freeof-charge benefit of publication engines known as postdocs.Postdocs are paid highly (Table 2, B) to publish research papers and are frequently set to serve a supervisor and selected staff.It is timely to rethink postdoc management by aligning their presence to realising national needs.Mismanagement of postdocs as a costly skilled labour conquest is alarming when postdocs are hired to mask the unskilled.
The disheartening impact of postdocs on students' mystified learning goals can also be counter-productive.Students expect to be assisted by postdocs to generate data, analyse data, and communicate technical ideas instead of committedly learning data analysis and producing original writing.

People Factor
An inclusive restorative and preparative strategy for people manning teaching and nurturing human beings is critical as awareness of the people-driven loopholes in the local higher learning institution (LHEI) heightens.The role of College A presents the best-fit illustration.College A was chosen by candidate X who failed the assessment for a professional qualification elsewhere.Candidate X managed to pass the international qualification upon completion of the outsourced supporting classes offered at College A. The impact of College A became its track record and today it stands as parents' choice of study destination for their children.In this regard, single parent, G, who was in her 50s, laid two options for a child doing so well as an SPM leaver -to pursue a degree in a developed country or acquire a professional certification at College A if LHEI is the child's preference.Analysis shows that the people manning College A teaching tasks are professionally certified.Despite not having a Ph.D. in their area, the staff demonstrate mastery of the teaching materials and given their 20 years of work experience, adapted to the common hiccups facing students.The scenario implies the prominence of being well versed with the subject matter, understanding hiccups, and global-standard certification or qualification that spells the expertise.Doctoral candidates earning Ph.D. qualifications through ghost authorship of their theses are handicapped in their claimed area of expertise despite passing viva voce.Given the common option for contract cheating and a superb quality ghost-writing service in developed countries, Ph.D. students could learn the nitty gritty of their project even without writing the theses themselves.The challenging idea construction processes involving analysis, multiple rounds of evaluation, and laying the best-synthesised ideas are the three critical learning milestones that would remain unpolished when a doctoral candidate cuts corners in the learning process.
Teaching is the core business of a highereducation institution, and the country suffers a great loss when HEIs are unmanned by calibre teachers.Commitment to knowledge acquisition, formulation, and transfer (Table 3, Favoured Quality Cue) must be the yardstick for teaching passion and rewarded handsomely.In a research university, focus on teaching may diminish with attentionderailing activities carrying a higher KPI weight.Thus, while aligning with national needs is the solution for circular nation-building, it is timely to stop the irrational reward system (Wiczew, 2023) to prevent further wastage of the national resources and paralysis of the education sector.Intelligently analysing and accurately redefining the national needs-to-skill alignment (NSA) is a priority and setting the thinking nation as the target is only actualisable when staff activity and reward system align with grooming students towards thinking.Tilo (2023), in this regard, illuminated graduate skill alignment with industry need, which is now trending as 'university-in-industry' ('Preferred', A in Figure 4).Be it academia or industry, for NSA to be actualised, misconduct must be stopped to preserve values and acumen.Lying-triggered distorted thinking (Schaarschmidt, 2018; Rayat 2021; Drouvelis & Pearce, 2023) must be stopped from propagating to avoid direr consequences captured by Schaarschmidt (2018).
From an economic perspective, allowing villains the top positions is analogous to consenting to a collapsed education system, perhaps a decade from the villain's retirement, if not sooner.SPM leavers' refusal of university enrolment and students leaving the university after several semesters of dry learning are only two of the many predictors while other repercussions translating into PISA2022, and THE bottom ranks are louder wake-up calls.It is recommended that THE top 300 positions defy universities that keep villains to laud disapproval towards academic misconduct.Unceasing the cheating culture means allowing the toxins to be injected into the national human capital capsule.Likewise, cleansing the system ensures positive spending for profitable long-term outcomes.Sustainable prosperity will come with nation-building and efficient talent management that come in suggestable and doable (but stern) steps.In the interim, setting NSA as work direction offers workand-life balance, defined as the balance between performing work and personal responsibilities in harmonious equilibria (Zolkefley et al., 2023).The focus aligned to efficiently achieving national needs would simultaneously reduce side works normally fulfilled for mere bucket filling.Restoring the system must be set as a national priority, and availing an effective talent hub is the only way to equip the multisectoral system with high-calibre critical mass generated by the education system.Acting now and placing the boosters in place are the ways to avail competitive, dependable HEIs for circular, all-functional, nation-building.

Conclusion
Through the developed RES-Q, the issuesfixes map led to an analytical inquest for screening the right-fit academic staff to restore the national talent hub towards nation-building.The qualitative assessment through the suggested analytical inquiry will only be successfully deployed when manned by panel members who confess the gap and the need to restore by the cleansing procedure.Res-Q responds to the HEI unpopularity factors by laying an alternative assessment exercise to troubleshoot the irrational reward system derailed from national needs.Res-Q maps also recognise committed teachers whose sacrifice provides a lifeline to the sector, maintaining the number of students excelling academically.Their exceptional skills and devotion form the pivotal part of the needs-skill-alignment, NSA, which should define the new work direction to substitute the existing derailing practices.To speed up restoration, preparation of the first-generation academic magnet may require a reshuffle of staff based on dominant strength.Operating HEIs in the proposed way is envisioned as the road to eradicating dysfunctional educators symbolising wastes in the circular nationbuilding.Islam as the way to splendour has long guided on the correctness and forbid wastage.While all resources must be gratefully valued, corrective and preparative strategies recommended in RES-Q will actualise circular nationbuilding, recognising the functional academic to shoulder the educating responsibility.

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Crime-character as opposed to crimecorruption pathways

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Res-Q map for visualising the fixability (purple ovals) of the issues (teal) of HEIs academia raised by late teens that prompted them to work or opt for TVET certification for the validated reasons in the green gradient Figure 5: Educators' offers to match a set of ideal learning goals with the blue shades indicating fronts requiring advanced literacy skills in the process of 'empowering' the candidate.I 2024 JULY I GJAT ISSN: 2232-0474 I E-ISSN: 2232-0482 http://jurnal.usas.edu.my/gjat/index.php/journalThis journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 4. How do you carry out the responsibility of a mentor?Present the proof.
-0474 I E-ISSN: 2232-0482 http://jurnal.usas.edu.my/gjat/index.php/journalThis journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Rescue of the talent hub by reskilling the existing generation of educators (1) via RES-Q is critical in soaring (2-9) the education quality and functional nation-building -0474 I E-ISSN: 2232-0482 http://jurnal.usas.edu.my/gjat/index.php/journalThis journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Table 1 :
RES-Q Enquiry for Skill Validation (Disciplinary Research) /jurnal.usas.edu.my/gjat/index.php/journalThis journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) This journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Table 2 :
RES-Q Enquiry for Mentoring Skill Validation