Crimean Victimimized

Unfair Punishment

JUNE 20, 2005, NST

Show proof, and don’t make blanket statements that will worry more than a thousand students at the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) and their families.

"I challenge the Government to provide statistics on the number of unqualified Malaysian students versus those who are (qualified)," said K. Balasingam, who has a son in his third year at CSMU.

"It’s not fair to punish everyone because of one or two or three students."

He said if it was true that the university had lowered its entry standards by accepting arts stream dropouts and academically poor science stream students, the Government should prove it.

"If the students are not qualified, the Government should take action on the students themselves, their agents or the officials at the Higher Education Ministry or the relevant department who approved the students’ application to Crimea," he said.

On Friday, the Government decided to de-recognise the university from Jan 1 next year. The Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) said it would not recognise students registered and admitted to medical and pre-medical courses at the university.

One of Balasingam’s main worries is that his son, Dinesh Francis, who obtained 8As in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination, would return after completing his studies to find a stigma attached to his CSMU qualification.

"Most European universities recognise CSMU, as my son found out when he was surfing the Internet for an affordable university," he said.

Students face a relatively strict admission process to the university, Balasingam said. He said an agent in Malaysia sent registration forms to students, who filled and returned them to the agent for forwarding to the university. On approval, the university sends a letter of invitation, without which the Ukraine embassy will not issue a visa.

"So the question is, how did the arts students or poor science students get accepted in the first place?"

Last year, Balasingam, a former hockey player, visited his son at the university and was pleased with what he saw.

"I saw three of four classes at the university in which there were only 15 students to a lecturer. Furthermore, the learning environment is good. There are no pubs or clubs there and it is a nice town for students."

He was there for five days with his wife and they spent time with his son’s classmates, mostly Malaysians, met with the university lecturers and visited the library.

"My son is going to be a good doctor one day. Malaysia is going to lose a good doctor because I will ask him to work in the UK although I want him to come back and serve his country."

Management consultant Shan Thuraisingham, who called the New Straits Times to comment on the issue, said the MMC had been peremptory in deciding on qualifications for students studying .

"If it had any qualms on de-registering the students from the university in Ukraine, it should have referred to the Public Service Department as it is the authority on such matters," he said.

"The MMC has gone beyond its jurisdiction by registering and de-registering universities."

He added that there was no reason why students from the arts stream could not be given the chance to take up medicine. Shan said this was not the first time that such a situation had occurred, as the Government had had problems in the past recognising medical qualifications from Manipal in India, but that had been resolved at the Cabinet level.