When Malaysia became an independent country in 19 7, the population of
7 million was faced with an acute shortage in the dental workforce; a very high caries prevalence, described as ìappallingî; and a young population, with more than 0 percent of the population under age 1 ( Öá á Ö Ü à â ). At that time, there were 20 dental o cers and 26 assistant dental o cers in government service, with another 50 dentists in private practice, who were concentrated in urban areas. The dentist-to-population ratio was 1: ,000.
In addition, there were 00 ìregistered dentistsî who, while having no formal quali cations for practicing dentistry, provided limited care; dentistry had not been legally recognized at that time. Local dentists were trained in Singapore ( ä). There was no school of dentistry in Peninsular Malaya in 19 7 and their dentists were trained in Singapore. In 1970, the dentist-to-population ratio was 1:40,356. It was not until 1976 that the rst class of 30 dentists graduated from the newly established Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. Two new public dental schools opened in 199 ( ã). Also in 2000, to address the inequitable distribution between public and private dentists, the government implemented legislation that required all new dental graduates to work in the government dental service for three years before being admitted