Out Goes The Lecturer

The Star newspapers has reported an article by a Malay language tabloid about a lecturer of a local university who failed 97% of her students for sub-standard work and was subsequently forced to resign when she refused to reverse her decision despite immense pressure from the University. The full article is reproduced below:

"A UNIVERSITI Sains Islam Malaysia lecturer who passed only four out of 157 of her law students claims she was forced to resign so that the university could protect its reputation, Kosmo! reported.

Nor (not her real name) said the reason she left was because she could not stand the pressure from the university management on her to give “sympathy marks.”

“How am I to give extra marks if the marks they got is what they should be getting?” she said, adding that her downfall started when she received a show-cause letter on why so many students had failed.

She was then criticised by her superiors, who also wanted her to add marks based on attendance so as to reduce the number of failures.

“I stood my ground. How could I give them marks for that when it is their responsibility to show up for classes?” she added.

The university declined to comment."

Haha, I am both heartened and disheartened by this report.

I am heartened because it shows that there are still people out there who live by their conscience and principles and just do what is right, regardless. If there are enough of such ethical people around, there is hope for the country.

I am disheartened because it again shows what a scam our local higher education system is. Passing students for sub-standard work is not the way to go. The sub-standard local graduates that we see are evidence that the story is probably true. The Higher Education Ministry is just concerned about the number of graduates the country churns out a year - heck care about academic excellence.

There is a certain mentality among young people here that being a graduate is an achievement by itself. There is no need to ask about the quality of the degree or the marketability of the graduates. A fair number of these graduates end up unemployed or depend on the civil service to absorb them.

We have a long way to go if we want to talk about competing globally. In developed countries, it is not just the degree that matters, but which university the degree is from that is so important in opening doors. Today, Malaysia does not even have a university that is within the world's Top 200, going by the Times (UK) survey. If we do not start looking at this issue seriously, we will always be in the backwater. Is that what we want? Will the Najib administration look into this?