KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 — Students in other universities said they had never encountered problems with the controversial Islamic and Asian Civilisation Studies (TITAS) like that of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s (UTM) slides on “dirty” Hindus.

Multimedia design student Thomas Tinagaren, 22, from the Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) University College here said the only problem he had with the mandatory subject was that it repeated much of what was taught in his last year of secondary school.

“[TITAS] is alright. It’s similar to Sejarah in Form 5. Some parts, literally [similar],” he told Malay Mail Online.

“I don’t mind learning about history. It’s sort of my thing.”

Feisal Johanne, 21, who studies mechanical engineering at Universiti Malaysia Pahang in Kuantan, said there were no problematic group discussions on non-Muslim faiths when he took TITAS last year.

“There was nothing weird. It’s mostly on Islamic history, but on the topic of other religions, it seemed to be accurate when we discussed it among ourselves as a group,” he said.

TAR University College graduate Michelle Tan, 22, said she too did not encounter any issues, but felt the subject was unnecessary since the contents have been taught before.

“It is pretty much the same [as upper secondary history], and a waste of time,” she told Malay Mail Online.

“But in regards to the content, my teacher was quite neutral [when it came to religion].”

Leaked educational slides from UTM’s TITAS module sparked public uproar recently for portraying Hindus as “dirty” and claimed that they learned civility from the introduction of Islam. The slides also provided inaccurate facts on Sikhism’s founding, claiming the religion had borrowed heavily from Islam.

The public university’s vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Wahid Omar has since apologised and vowed to conduct a thorough probe on what he described as an “isolated incident”, which he admitted did not use ministry-approved content.