Press Statement by PROGRESSIVE University Malaya On Academic Freedom in University of Malaya [30 March 2014] As a President and on behalf of Progressive University of Malaya’s Team, we are deeply concern with the deteriorating standards of academic freedom in University of Malaya (UM). In the recent weeks, we came to witness several academic events in University of Malaya was forced to be cancelled due to prohibitions by the university authorities namely the Student’s Affair Division (HEP). The latest being a talk on Public Interest Litigation by Dato Ambiga Sreenevasan in conjunction with the annual Law Career Convention held at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya. This is the second time this month that an academic event was forced to be cancel with the previous being a sharing session on Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy II trial by Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) 2 weeks back at the Faculty of Arts and Social Science. It is regrettable that not only the standards of our country’s education has fallen way below the point of acceptance as we now see that academic freedom of the students is trample upon by the University itself which is supposed to be a centre of learning. Only last week the Faculty of Law hosted a great event featuring former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed which was greeted with a full house at the Tun Mohamed Suffian Auditorium. It saddens us to see the double standards being practice by the University when it comes organizing activities featuring prominent members of society. It is as if the university holds full discretion in deciding the school of thought for their students and this therefore compromises our academic freedom. Students should be taught how to think and not what to think and it is clear beyond reasonable doubt that the university authorities seek to indoctrinate the students mind so that they will submit to whatever thinking the university wishes them to think. We would like to remind the university that it is not a factory which produces certificates but a centre of knowledge to produce human capital for the future of this country. Academic freedom is essential to create a generation of thinking class professionals to take this country to greater heights. Malaysia’s poor performance in the latest Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) rankings which saw her sitting at 52nd position among 65 countries participating shows how far our 15 year old students lack behind when it comes to Mathematics, Science and Reading as compared to other 15 years old students from other nations. This shows that not only our education system is rotten at the primary and secondary level and to add salt to our wounds we are witnessing the deteriorating of tertiary education beyond the level of acceptance by any reasonable citizen. In short, we firmly suggest that the university should attend to matters of more importance such as improving the quality of education in UM itself rather than interfering with student activities. Academic freedom is one core value that the university has imbedded on every four corner in the university where one can glance at a portrait of the list of core values it practices. We hope that the university can walk the talk and uphold its credibility of doing so. By Al-Richtyne B. Yusuf President of PROGRESSIVE University Malaya
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 05:22:17 +0000
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