Shafie should direct the University of Malaya Vice Chancellor to halt campus witch-hunt because of  his Terence Gomez debacle and focus instead on restoring the international reputation of the country’s premier university for academic excellence and freedom

Media  Statement  (3)
by Lim Kit Siang  

(Parliament, Tuesday): The Minister for Higher Education, Datuk Dr. Shafie Salleh should direct the University of Malaya Vice Chancellor Prof Dr. Hashim Yaacob to halt the  campus witch-hunt because of  his Terence Gomez debacle and focus instead on restoring the international reputation of the country’s premier university for academic excellence and freedom.

The  reinstatement of  Dr. Terence Gomez as  Assoc Professor of University of Malaya  following the personal intervention of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi last month  in approving Gomez’  secondment to take up the prestigious United Nations  research appointment in Geneva was a major “loss of face” for the Vice Chancellor, but Hashim had only himself to blame for such a public spectacle of his disgrace.

Hashim will only be compounding his mishandling of the Terence Gomez secondment issue if he now seeks to vent his spleen at the embarrassment he suffered as a result of the Prime Minister’s intervention by gunning for easier targets, like the  President of the University of Malaya Academic Staff Union (PKAUM), Professor Rosli Mahat, who had been issued a “show cause” letter by the Vice Chancellor for  his support of  Dr. Terence Gomez during the Gomez controversy.

Hashim’s latest recalcitrance in looking for scapegoats for his embarrassment in the Terence Gomez debacle only refocus public attention on the qualities needed of a  good Vice Chancellor.  At the parliamentary roundtable on “Higher Education in Crisis” on May 27, one major proposal to arrest and reverse the decline and drop of academic excellence in Malaysian higher education is to end the appointment of  people who are  well connected politically to be Vice Chancellors and Deputy Vice Chancellors and to ensure  that  at minimum the appointees should be internationally-respected scholars, with the whole process of selection made transparent.

If  Hashim goes on  a witch-hunt in the University of Malaya to punish academics who had rightly spoken up in support of Dr. Terence Gomez, Shafie will have to answer for Hashim’s most unacademic and unscholarly conduct when Parliament reconvenes for the budget meeting in September.

(26/07/2005)