Favouritism in academic promotions, monitoring the internal e-mail system and tampering with examination marks are among the malpractices in Malaysia's oldest and foremost university - Universiti Malaya (UM).

UM academic Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said there is an allegation of impropriety in the promotion exercise in the university.

"A committee was established to look into this allegation by several lecturers. (UM academic) Union members were part of this committee. We found evidence to support the allegation," said Gomez who is also the union's vice-president in an exclusive interview with malaysiakini recently.

Stating the investigation as confidential, he said a report has been submitted to UM's vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Dr Hashim Yaacob and Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie Salleh last year, but no action was taken thus far.

"We asked the minister as well as the VC to establish a public enquiry, to do a proper independent investigation to ensure all promotion exercises are conducted in an open and transparent manner," he said.

Another issue that Gomez cited was the practice of tampering with students' examination marks to increase the passing rate.

He cited a paper where the failure rate was high, amid the strong protest from the lecturers, the department concerned decided to give 13 additional percentage points across the board to all students.

"(UM) academic union is concerned that lecturers have been robbed of their autonomy in the marking of exam scripts," he said.

E-mails monitored

Gomez, an associate professor of political economy at UM's Faculty of Economics and Administration, was recently forced to resign from the university after his application for a secondment to lead a United Nations' prestigious project was rejected.

Last Friday, in a dramatic about-turn, the government overruled the university's decision, approved his unpaid leave and revoked his resignation.

Meanwhile, Gomez revealed that the university authorities also monitored the internal e-mail system based on the reason that the alleged distribution of pornographic material needed to be checked.

"That e-mail system is now being monitored to ensure that material which the university feels is not proper is not distributed. We feel that this is improper. This is not a police state. This is a university," he said


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