We must do right by our students and academics

Aslam Abdul Jalil, the Malaysian student and JPA scholar at the Australian National University who was issued a show cause letter for hosting an April 2014 event in Canberra with PJ Utara MP Tony Pua, has just graduated.

His case is one of the many examples of how Malaysia is not doing right by its university students and academics.

Despite promises made not too long ago by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to repeal the University and University Colleges Act 1971, or that the era of government knows best was over (remember that?), the fact remains that academic freedom is a distant dream for our institutions of higher learning.

Just look at the many recent incidents of Malaysian students and academics being punished for the horrific crime of having independent minds.

In April 2014, a UiTM Sabah student, Mohd Fathihie Gadius was issued a letter by his institution accusing him of breaching the Educational Institutions (Discipline) Act 1976 for posting against the GST on his Facebook account.

In May 2014, four Universiti Malaya students – Fahmi Zainol, Leong Yu Sheng, Lee Jin Yang and Anis Nabihah Alias – were issued show-cause letters by UM’s Student Affairs Division for allegedly tarnishing and damaging the university's reputation by demonstrating against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement during US President Barack Obama’s visit to their campus.

Then of course, we have the controversial, sacking of Professor Datuk Dr Mohammad Redzuan Othman as director of Universiti Malaya's Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMcedel), allegedly because of the controversial nature of the public opinion polls it ran.

I am not suggesting that universities have no right to discipline their students or staff members.

But the good faith and motives of our university authorities must be called into question given the seemingly political nature of these prosecutions, which quite frankly seem more like persecutions.

We must do away with the thinking that university students and academics – the intellectual elites of society – have less political rights than a normal citizen.

We are violating human rights and the principle of equal citizenship when we claim that students do not have the right to have an opinion about what is going on in their societies.

We are insulting our collective intelligence as a nation when we suggest that being concerned about current affairs will damage ones academic performance.

The opposing side has not and cannot produce empirical evidence of their claims – simply because these are non-existent.

But while this debate goes back and forth, the quality and standings of our universities continue to decline.

In June, it was reported that not one Malaysian tertiary institution made it into the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2014.

Let me make it clear: all of this is the fault of the BN government and its failed policies.

The fact is that the BN-led government does not regard education as a human right and need, but rather a convenient tool for political control.

Its policies towards curriculums, academic appointments as well as the establishment and administration of institutions of learning at all levels are geared towards either boosting opportunities for patronage or squelching dissent.

How else can we explain repeated controversies over the construction of certain private universities which were found to have benefitted politically-connected individuals?

How else can we explain why opposition-leaning students and academics seen to run afoul of university authorities for superfluous reasons?

Simply put: successive BN governments don’t care about education.

Don’t get me wrong. They’ll care if setting up a school here or a college there will win them votes or send lucrative contracts in the way of their favoured associates – as Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli has recently exposed in the UiTM concession fiasco.

They’ll care if students speaking the truth to power embarrass the elite.

But of creating world-class institutions producing enlightened Malaysians who can compete internationally – no.

Of forging an educational curriculum that can unite our diverse society – forget about it.

Of putting parents and students first rather than faceless bureaucrats in Putrajaya – not a chance.

Until politics and policies change, Malaysia’s education will continue to be in doldrums.

And until there is greater academic freedom, we can forget about producing better and more productive human capital. – August 5, 2014.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.