(UPM, Tuesday): We strongly the bureaucratic attitude of UPM management of not accepting a memorandum submitted by a group of NGOs and political parties. It is clear from here that the management of UPM is trying to push this issue as an internal issue rather than a national issue that concern the rights and benefits of the rakyat.

23 NGOs and political parties gather this morning in front of the Administration Building of UPM in order to submit a memorandum to UPM Deputy Vice Chancellor (Students Affairs) as well as to have an open dialogue with him concerning various issues that took place in UPM, topping the list is the most recent assault on several SPF students by another group of UPM students, claimed to be the leaders of UPM Students Representatives Council and Residential College Students Representative Committee.

Though we had earlier made an appointment, that a group of 20 people, representing various sectors and stakeholders would like to meet the Deputy Vice Chancellor, we were stopped and limited with only three persons to enter the office. Much to our dismay is that we are only received by a normal staff while reporters and representatives from the media are not allowed to follow to cover the event.

The management of UPM has portrayed an unacceptable attitude towards public scrutiny on what happened in the campus recently. It is the stand of DAPSY that right from the beginning, the issue should not be treated as a trivial issue in the campus as it has a very serious and far-reaching impact on the development and image of Malaysian Higher Education, especially those of the Public Institutions of Higher Education. More over, the students who alleged to behave unruly are claimed to be the leaders from the Students Representative Council, which is the highest students body in the university.

It is equally sad to witness that the bureaucrats in UPM refused to “turun padang” as urged by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The PM has openly called for high ranking government servants to go to the field (turun ke padang) in order to understand the problem of the general society as well as concerns of the grassroot communities. What we encounter today is definitely not in accordance with the PM’s call.

Much to our dismay, when we were addressing the groups of NGOs and political parties who came to the campus to submit the memorandum, there were a group of people disturbing the progress of our activity this morning, either by shouting or laughing at us. I went upstairs to check for their identities only to find that they were wearing UPM tags, which I failed to identify whether the tags are student tags or staff tags as the two are almost the same.

Regardless of whether they are students or staffs, we need to stress that the gathering we have this morning is a peaceful gathering and that there is no intention to disturb anybody. If the group of people who disturb us upstairs are students, and if it is so unfortunately that they are from the UPM Students Representative Council, what we can say is that the culture of gangsterism is already deep-rooted in the campus until these students do not even know the basic courtesy of respecting the rights of other people to organize activities. Their behaviors certainly do not fit in the definition of the conduct of a university student.

By witnessing all these ugly incidents, let us ask ourselves a question of whether this is the like of the university students our universities are teaching? There is so much stress on human capital from the government but are all these just meaningless rhetoric since these unruly students are unfortunately part of the “human capital” we have on hands?

Therefore, we call on the management of UPM to be courages to listen to opinions from civil society and the people. Public Institutions of Higher Learning is the hope of the country if we were to be a fully developed nation. The tolerant attitude put up by the administration such unruly and uncivilized acts will only deteriorate the higher education crisis that we are encountering now and we certainly would not like to witness this disease from spreading into other universities.