Wednesday July 19, 2006
Grads claim biasness in other courses
By SHARMILLA GANESAN
PETALING JAYA: At Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), the Ethnic Relations subject is a one-semester compulsory course which is worth two credits. Students attend two-hour lectures twice a week and many are taught by part-time lecturers.
At public universities, it is one of several compulsory subjects undergraduates have to take, and pass, anytime during their three or four-year course. They also have to take Malaysian Studies, Islamic Civilisation, Malaysian Citizenship and languages.
The Ethnic Relations course covers, among others, an introduction to basic concepts, such as plurality.
First-year students at Universiti Malaya, Joseph Tong and Chong Huey Ching, however, claimed that they have not been informed about the subject.
A few graduates, however, hope that the scrutiny sparked by the outburst over the Ethnic Relations module will also bring into focus the biasness of the content in the other compulsory university courses, namely Islamic Civilisation and Malaysian Citizenship.
A fresh graduate of UPM said she had encountered biased content in the compulsory Islamic Civilisation unit when she was studying.
“I found the textbook very condescending towards the other religions, and the lecturer would highlight these parts,” she said.
A Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia graduate too said how his lecturer handled the Islamic Civilisation class made him feel very uncomfortable.
“He made me hate going to the class. In the end, I skipped the class and because of that I lost credit points, which affected my overall results,” he added.
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