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Panel to draft UUCA amendments

Wednesday, 07 December 2011 08:41am

©The Sun Daily (Used by permission)
by Hemananthani Sivanandam

PUTRAJAYA (Dec 6, 2011): The Higher Education Ministry will appoint a committee to draft the amendments to Section 15 of the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) 1971.

According to its minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, the ministry will form the committee to formulate the terms of reference and get input from all stakeholders, including students and universities, for the proposed amendments.

Khaled said that the committee and the details of its set-up would have to be approved by cabinet first before it could start work on the draft.

He expressed the hope that the amendments will be ready for tabling in the March session of Parliament next year.

Khaled told a press conference this after presenting letters of intent to industries participating in the High-End Industry Graduate Internship Programme (HEIGIP) today.

He said that with the amendments to Section 15 of UUCA, other related acts will also undergo changes.

"This means changes to the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996, which private institutions are subjected to will also be amended," he said.

Khaled said the acts which regulate and govern the teaching institutions, polytechnics and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) will also be amended.

"But for the UiTM, it is not subjected to the UUCA as it has its own Act 174 (the Universiti Teknologi Mara Act 1976) so, all this will be amended," he said.

He said that the amendments will affect over a million tertiary students.

Khaled said he welcomes the government decision of not allowing partisan politics to be brought into the university campuses as it meets educational goals, which needs to be achieved by students.

He said the amendments to the various education acts will ensure that the neutrality of universities and the campuses remain, but at the same time uphold the students' rights to participation in the larger community life.

"I hope all parties will support and respect the amendments, especially when we say no to partisan politics in the campus. We will definitely stress on non-partisan politics in the campus in terms of enforcement," he said.

Last month, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that Section 15 of the UUCA would be amended to enable students to join political parties, but not to the extent of bringing politics into the campus.

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