A UiTM student’s voice.
I’m sure you guys know about UiTM students protesting against the Selangor MB’s proposal to open up 10 percent of the places at UiTM to non-Malays.The current UiTM vice chancellor Dato’ Seri Prof Dr Ibrahim Abu Shah whacked Khalid Ibrahim’s suggestion and said that “UiTM was the last educational bastion for the Malays and other Bumiputeras to help change their lot, hence no quarters should interfere with its founding objectives and administration.” I’ve also seen press statement from Gamis (Gabungan Mahasiswa Islam Se-Malaysia) making this issue not just about the bumiputeras but about Islam.
Geez.
Anyway, here’s a reply from one of my friends who graduated from UiTM and will be returning soon to teach there. Even if it’s the minority view, she is surely not alone.
Kudos to the Selangor MB for wanting to open UiTM to non-Malays. It should’ve been done a long time ago.
The reaction to this proposal?
A ‘peaceful’ demonstration by some 5000 UiTM students OPPOSING this 10% quota of non-Bumi’s into UiTM. Why? Scared? Scared that you’ll lose privileges? Scared that you’d no longer be spoonfed?
The VC said that UiTM was meant to help the Malays and Malays only, it was established to enable them to pursue a tertiary level education.
Erm…hello?? Yeah, that was awesome 30 years ago, but come off it, it’s 2008, i think we can manage on our own. Then you wanna talk about being the ‘best’, ‘largest’, ‘world-class’ university and everything in between. Then you speak about multi-cultural, multi-racial society and what not. This is the height of racism.
Disgusting. There was nothing peaceful about that demonstration. It screamed blatant discrimination against the other races in this country. As it is, Malays get enough privileges, and of course we’ve got racist MP’s making statements like why should the government help non-Malays? All sources should be directed towards helping the Malays.
Riiiiight…tell the truth…you guys wanna help YOURSELVES!
True, i am a UiTM graduate myself, and trust me, the 5 years i spent there, weren’t exactly the best. There’s so much ass-kissing going on. What’s the harm of trying to improve the quality of education and competitiveness?? Seriously, WHAT’S THE HARM???!!!
Before i left for the United States, i had people come up to me and say ‘Be careful, you’re Muslim, they might discriminate against you and all, especially after 9-11.”
Bullshit.
I’m in friggin’ NYU, N-E-W Y-O-R-K U-N-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y….where is New York??? United States right…mat salleh country and in my class, you’ve got people from all over the world. Chileans, Koreans, Indians, Chinese, Canadians, Mexicans…you name, we’ve got them all. And there’s healthy competition. We learn from one another. The Korean isn’t going to hold back any information from me just because i’m not like him. So much for being worried about racism and discrimination, where i am right now, we’re all equal.
COME ON MALAYSIA!!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!!
It’s time for equal opportunity.
I hate cowards.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
kudos to you & the others who see the light!!!
as for the other ‘kataks’ who still wish to be under the tempurong the gomen has put up - be prepared to sell your soul & your integrity (oops! nothing to sell if it ain’t there - sorry!)
How much longer you frogs are gonna be contented living within this ‘made-up’reality & want protection from the real world. You afraid of competition from the rest of us??? Then shape up and buck up!! Get your grey matter moving on its own - not baste in the pretentious glory that the g-men is feeding you with.
If you always need a lower passing-mark to get through your exams, if you always need your trial papers to be the actual exam questions, and if you always need your battles to be ‘won’ automatically by the g-men, then you are pathetic. You don’t know what life is - you won’t get top taste what real achievement is - how are you going to pass these universal values to your children??? Poor you!
August 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Hi,
Hey now since Arief shah bin haji omar shah is selected to contest the PP Bi election, I have INFO on ASBHOS ,He was my student in civil enginerring at the FIT or federal institute of technology and i was the factor to start him off n student politics. I encouraged him to stand for the post of president of SRC in the 70s and i swayed the votes for him.
Because he is standing against DSAI i take it upon my self to fight ASBHOH.
I can also show that he paid money to get a pass in most papers, EG, structures, RC, Water supply, technical drawing. He even tried payng me $50 to enable him to get a pass in my subject. I told him off but he was a sweet talking young man then,I liked him and was lenient with him. But now, Its WARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR on him.
He was quite well to do as his brother amin shah ,{yeh the crony} was operating HOME INDUSTRIES at that time.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I wonder if people will attack your friend’s statement because she is in NYC and thus she has no authority to speak of such things.
Should be interesting to watch.
August 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
i do see the act of the UITM students are quite unprofessional.they supposed to let the big guy in UITM council to speak for them first before parading against Khalid suggestion.
Khalid is another thing as well.he knows that he cant make any changes to the system at UITM and still he wanted to make such suggestion.why?to create irrational fear among fellow malays?.come on. education should not be politicise.
August 14th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
She has a point to made. Not that she was away at NYU, but the fact she has studies at UiTm that gave her a different sight. Grow up! open your eyes and see differently. Don’t be like a NATO. No Action, Talk Only. Always talk of Multinational and so on. Act!
August 14th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Ms “I’m in friggin’ NYU… we’re all equal” should pass on her teaching job in UiTM and apply her teaching skills elsewhere.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
As a product of UiTM and having seen what goes on in there i can see where she is coming from. Being a bumiputra non malay there, isn’t really an easy task and i commend the tolerance that my fellow friends non malays had to endure there. perhaps it was a lucky turn of faith that my batch and my faculty was open minded enough and not so constricted in terms of thought and racial profiling that we came together close.
I’ve been in numerous type sets of educational institutions of learning and i’ve always believed in the virtues of merit and going beyond typical stereotypes. From learning in west and east malaysia, to private and governmental institutions there is a huge difference in mindset and maturity. Opening UiTM’s borders to non malays and non bumiputra’s will be a boon to its name in my humble opinion. It will be a step closer to the now non-existent monicker or “Bangsa Malaysia”. If ever we are to be united as a nation and not based on creed or race, education is where it starts. Even more so at a such an age.
Coming out of UiTM we were called the “universiti kampung” due to our composition and general mentality which i found very offensive. I believed that a lot of my fellow colleagues came out matured and even more open minded despite the on-goings in there. The standards put upon us was rather harsh and we had quite an exemplary teaching methodology (for my faculty at least) which made us tough and prepared more so for the real world rather then the others. This came to the point that other similar faculties from other universities tried to emulate and blatantly copied off our curriculum. But yet due to the general misconception of the public we were still branded backwards. So much so that certain firms and companies actually start our students off at a lower pay bracket seeing where we come out from.
Don’t get me wrong, i am very much thankful and appreciative of my mentors and to UiTM for giving me my education and developing me as a person. But i believe that it can be something bigger and better if they’d only opened up their eyes and leave behind the skepticism’s and prejudices of yonder years behind. If Malaysia truly wants to forge ahead and create leaders and an exemplary work force education is everything and pulling our students behind with these kinds of policies will only undermine our future generations. Put this in perspective, leading schools in the US and the UK actually have quota’s for affirmative action. They actually want persons of different backgrounds, nationality, perspectives etc to enrich the teaching and learning process, which i have benefitted from. Shouldn’t this be something that we emulate?
In terms of the administrative and legal structure of UiTM, it is to be noted that it does not fall under AUKU, it was created by reference to the Federal Constitution’s original spirits to uplift the malay and bumiputra’s standard of living and education and its own pursuant act. In terms of red tape and administrative processes, would be hell to change. But if the policies of the government is to change for the better, so should the law fall in to benefit the people.
With due respect to all, i believe that we should not give up and run off on a flawed system but rather stay on and persevere to make it a better one.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
check out this link - http://amyswavelength.blogspot.com/2008/08/overrated-rights.html
August 15th, 2008 at 1:12 am
See….who says peaceful demonstrations cannot take place? Arr…but it depends on who is demonstrating…..if its the common folk……CANNOT….cause…..National Security…..Public interest…but if UITM….no problem….anything also can….
Then again….if UITM wants to close its doors to other races….please be my guest…..
there is no point fixing something which cannot be fixed.
They wanna live in their own dream world….they are always allowed to do so.
Eh….no road blocks by the cops?? Of course…peaceful demo ma…
sigh…and double sigh….
August 15th, 2008 at 8:55 am
this issue is among many in a series called “stoking the tension” presented by our ever so caring government.
this is not a uitm issue, its a national one. i went there for a couple of years, people were great. its not the 10% or whatever other number, its the perception. think about it, if the number of places are to be increased by 10% to accomodate non-bumi’s would it be ok as it would not kacau the bumi allocation? but they wont want it still coz the main agenda is to continue to polarise and breed hatred. duh.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:55 am
sooo agree with the Vertigo - let them live in their own dream world. beside multinational companies doesnt recognise or give so much value to those so called “U” itm… grads…
August 16th, 2008 at 11:43 am
thats why I will never vote BN again: truly a bunch of idiotic racists.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
they’re all so semangat when it comes to their malay rights
don’t they know that they have iban, melanau, bidayuh, kadazan, dusun, etc people studying there too.
jeez.
August 17th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
hi,
interesting. I am a Sarawakian Bumi studying in Selangor.
This is really disappointing, because first, So what if they wanna open the quota to 10% to Chinese? So what if they have more chinese than Malays in the univ..So what?
For me, that is a no big deal. because that increases competitiveness. it makes a person to work harder to get what they want.
by doing a demonstration like this shows tht they are scared. Scared tht in future they wont be able to compete with the non-Bumis.
They always talk about rights and privileges of the Bumis. But in truth, bumis like me are treated as non-bumis because i am a non-malay and a non-muslim.
These shudnt happen see. we are living together in Malaysia…try to live IN UNITY and dont divide according to races pls. I am ashamed to admit tht i am a malaysian.
August 17th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YcglcggQk8
August 18th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Guys,
Come on seriously, would a chinese parent send their kids to a malay university?
Look at our primary and secondary schools, you see them going to National Type or Chinese type?
Just abolish these racist schools and get everybody to be malaysian at young age.
Why the need to preserve any of the old tradition when we want new MAlaysian MAlaysia?
August 29th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Hey Miss .”I’m in friggin’ NYU, N-E-W Y-O-R-K U-N-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y” …. Stay in the State or go somewhere else, don’t waste your talent to go back to UiTM where your future generation will be deprived of a proper education. Once you have get out of Malaysia, stay out. There are lots of non-bumis who wanted out but not given any opportunity.