IT has been almost six months since the Court of Appeal in a landmark ruling declared it unconstitutional to prohibit university students from supporting or opposing political parties under the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA). On 9 April 2012, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin finally tabled amendments to the UUCA, Private Higher [...]

(Corrected at 6:15pm, 4 Sept 2010) THE student movement in Malaysia was once vibrant, independent and autonomous. “Mahasiswa jurubicara rakyat” was the students’ motto in the 1960s. However, the government enacted the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) in 1971 to restrict students’ freedom and their rising influence. Thereafter, the student movement suffered a decline. [...]

DR Khong Kim Hoong studied economics in Universiti Malaya (UM) from 1966 to 1969. He was elected as deputy president of the University of Malaya Students’ Union (Umsu) in his second year, and was made president for the 1968-1969 term. During the 1969 general election, he was one of the student leaders who toured 13 [...]

ACCORDING to our government, university students are freer than they have been because the UUCA has been amended and there are speaker’s corners on campus. But is there real freedom?

PETALING JAYA, 13 Aug 2010: Artist, filmmaker and historian Fahmi Reza has consistently been barred from presenting his Student Power lecture at Universiti Malaya (UM) since October 2009. All three attempts of Fahmi’s attempts to present his historical findings in UM about the student movement have been thwarted by the university administration. Fahmi was first [...]