Pergerakan Tenaga Akademik Malaysia (Gerak) applauds Education Minister Maszlee Malik’s decision to terminate the services of various top public university officials for reasons we are all aware of.
The reports in the various media on Tuesday state that the five terminated mark only the beginning. This is a good sign in our joint attempts to reform higher education. We in Gerak have been urging and supporting Maszlee in this endeavour and will continue to do so.
Maszlee, in turn, has openly stated his agreement with and support of Gerak’s much-publicised 10-point proposal for academic reforms, submitted personally to him about a month ago. We appreciate the legal, cultural and structural constraints facing Maszlee and do not expect all 10 proposals to be met in a short space of time.
Nonetheless, we are greatly encouraged by Maszlee’s decisive actions. To us, this illustrates true commitment by a fellow academic (turned politician) whose concerns go way beyond the colour of our children’s shoes.
We stand by Maszlee in his difficult attempts at education reforms and will continue to collaborate with him. This support comes more so because we are aware of self-serving groups and individuals scheming behind the scenes, hoping to see him – and the genuine reform of our country’s education system – fail.
Failure, as has often been said, is NOT an option.
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