I humbly call upon the management of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to immediately investigate the cause of the fire that happened in a dormitory instead of criticizing students’ clothing. At the same time, I urge the government and the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) to immediately provide emergency allocation to repair and upgrade the dilapidated basic facilities in UUM to safeguard students’ safety.
Student Progressive Front UUM, a student activist group, revealed that a fire broke out in a storage room of a student dormitory at UUM in the middle of the night, but the fire alarm system allegedly didn’t work during the fire. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished in time and no casualties were caused, but more than a thousand students in the dormitory were thrown into panic. However, the student activist group said that the head (pengetua) of the dormitory kept his plan to meet with some female students and warned them not to wear shorts in the dormitory area.
I call upon the management of UUM and the dormitory to put student safety their top priority and immediately investigate the cause of the fire. They must be transparent and give answers to teachers and students, instead of putting the cart before the horse by harping on students’ dress code.
Frequent accidents occurred on the campus of UUM, endangering the safety of students. However, the problems that were reflected by the terrifying incidents have not yet been resolved. In May 2022, the late UUM student Vinosiny suffered a fatal electric shock and lost her life, with the suspected reason being that the dormitory facilities were too dilapidated. The lingering fear continues to haunt many students and academic staff on campus. In May 2023, the fan blades of the ceiling fan in one of the UUM dormitories suddenly fell, and the student who was sleeping soundly in the room narrowly escaped the disaster.
Instead of harping on female students’ dress code, the management of UUM and the dormitory should pay attention to student safety issues instead of parroting the ultra-conservative agendas of some quarters on the campus.
At the same time, I call upon the Ministry of Higher Education to take immediate action and fork out emergency allocations to repair and upgrade the dilapidated basic facilities of UUM and other public universities instead of waiting purposely until the next accident happens.
In view of accidents happening in many public universities, I have often urged the MOHE to incorporate “improving students’ safety” as the ministry’s top priority. Also, I would like to propose to the ministry to make public the report of public universities’ safety assessment based on principles of transparency and accountability, so that students, lecturers, and the public can monitor the process of repairing basic facilities.
The occurrence of fire at UUM has proven once again that all efforts and policies to protect students shall be delayed no more. Furthermore, given that accidents also happened in other public universities, the MOHE should proactively roll out short-term and long-term solutions to improve facilities in order to safeguard the safety of all stakeholders in public universities.