Sunday, December 14, 2008

Fighting UUCA Tooth & Nail

Apologies for not having blogged for about a week. Besides a break since November was a record blogging month here, I was tied up with a few things, most notably "selling" dinner tickets as well as parliamentary work, particularly the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) which came up for debate in Parliament on Wednesday last week.

While, the most recent amendments to the UUCA has been passed without amendments late Thursday evening, readers should know (if it's of any comfort) that it was not passed before the representatives from Pakatan Rakyat giving the Minister of Higher Education some serious and often, uncomfortable grilling before it got passed.

At the same time, on behalf of an informal Pakatan Rakyat UUCA committee led by Nurul Izzah Anwar (LEMBAH PANTAI) and input from many academics, I have filed a motion to amend some 20 clauses in 6 sections, to the Amendment Act proposed by the Higher Education Ministry. Short of proposing a new bill, which will never see the light of day in the parliament, attempting to amend a bill which is put forward by the Government is the nearest and best available option to present our version of the bill.



The above is footage by Malaysiakini on a press conference which I gave a summary on the proposed amendments to the UUCA amendment bill.

I will blog on each of the sections which I have attempted to amend at the Committee stage of debate on the Amendment bill separate, as they are really long but most importantly, I will blog on the response of the Higher Education Minister on each of these sections, some of which were a real disappointing disgrace.

And for those who can't wait to read a little of my thoughts on UUCA, feel free to check out my posts on Education in Malaysia.

5 comments:

yowchuan said...

Thanks, Tony. If I didn't actually go through the video, I didn't realize that there are such PRIMITIVE (not restrictive) that is governing the students, who are supposed to be the next generation leaders of this country.

No wonder we are going backwards!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Tony for your brave efforts. We weren't optimistic in the first place that any positive ammendments will be made but at least various issues were brought into light. I'm sure this will not be the end of it.

OTL said...

Ridiculous!!! Please la, University student have their own thought on what they should do, they are mature enough!

Academician seem all control by the MOHE minister, then academician really can't make him/her unhappy, or else... Haha...

Student been charge can be kick-out, that I totally can't accept. Guilty before proven innocent.

YB YB please flight for the students, as you or me might also been Uni student before.

Anonymous said...

I have a question.

I thought that following the 8th March tsunami which has denied BN the 2/3rd majority, the parliament cannot allow BN to freely pass any new law as it requires a vote of 2/3rd majority to pass a law?

Why is it that the UUCA and MCAC law being passed with ease with the opposition still scrambling to fight it?

Anonymous said...

GL, the 2/3rd majority is only needed to pass laws changing the constitution. All ordinary laws require a simple majority, which the government has.