FACTORS INFLUENCING WILLINGNESS TO CONTRIBUTE FOR WAQF EDUCATION

Abstract

Nowadays, education has become more complex than before. The need for knowledge, understanding, and passion among societies had caused an increase in education demand. To prepare a better and higher-level quality of education, the Ministry of Higher Education had played vital roles to enhance their services and efficiency levels. Nevertheless, the trend of budget allocation for operating expenditure in education sectors had shown a decline for the past three years, starting from the year 2016 until 2018 (Ministry of Higher Education, 2018). Since the budget allocation was cut off, public universities in Malaysia were encouraged to seek their own funds. One of the alternatives implemented by public universities was fund seeking through waqf collection. Through waqf, it assists public universities to support their needs especially for financial sustainability in the future. Respondents totaling 398 people comprising of various societies in Ipoh, Perak participated in this survey. A simple random sampling technique was employed to measure the social culture, understanding, awareness level, religiosity, marketing methods and willingness to contribute to Waqf education. Pearson correlation was used to measure the relationship between the variables. The results indicated insignificant relationships between awareness and willingness to contribute to waqf education. Furthermore, the findings also explained that the social culture, understanding, religiosity, and marketing methods are the significant determinants in influencing the willingness to contribute to Waqf education. The findings from this study could benefit the Ministry of Higher Education itself, relevant government agencies and policymakers to promote Waqf as an alternative to generating income for education sectors in Malaysia.