KUALA LUMPUR – Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) will not stop its students from wearing black clothes tomorrow to protest calls to open a post-graduate programme to non-Bumiputeras.
Its corporate communications department said that no physical gatherings or demonstrations are set to take place, and students will only be protesting by wearing black.
“The student affairs division was informed there will be no gatherings. So we have no issue if they want to show solidarity by wearing black clothes. If there are those who hold demonstrations, further action will be taken,” the spokesman told Scoop today.
UiTM’s student representative council (MPP) has called for a campaign to protest calls to open the university to non-Bumiputera students by asking students to use the hashtag
#MahasiswaUiTMBantah hashtag on social media from May 14 until tomorrow, and to wear black tomorrow.
Its call for action was issued following an appeal by the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) last week for UiTM to prioritise the interests of public health by temporarily opening the university’s cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme to non-Bumiputera students to overcome the lack of specialists in the field.
MPP said all its 214 members firmly stood by UiTM’s founding objective as an institution for Malays, Orang Asli and the Bumiputera of Sabah and Sarawak.
The MPP’s statement, however, did not mention the specific context regarding the cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme but said there was an “agenda” to open UiTM to non-Bumiputeras.
MMA in its appeal said Malaysia was facing a shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons, with some people waiting six months to a year – and some dying while waiting – for a bypass surgery at public hospitals.
It added that Malaysia’s target of having 28,000 medical specialists by 2030 is unlikely to be met.
MMA president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz also highlighted remarks by UiTM’s Prof Dr Raja Amin Raja Mokhtar, who reportedly said he did not believe legislative amendments were needed to admit non-Bumiputera students into UiTM’s postgraduate programme.
Raja Amin is also on the board of studies of the UiTM-IJN cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme. – May 15, 2024