SEPTEMBER 7 — Pergerakan Tenaga Akademik Malaysia (GERAK) is puzzled and appalled by the recent appointment of Dr. Maszlee Malik as IIUM president.

For GERAK, this clearly goes against the new government’s purported commitment to free university management from political appointees.

Just a couple of few weeks ago, Dr Maszlee himself terminated the services of five public universities chairmen as they were deemed to be BN’s political appointees.

There should not be any exception to this policy.

No matter how noble you may think the end is, you can't justify the means. Putting a stop to political appointments in public universities is crucial in bringing back academic freedom to Malaysia.

In defence of Dr Maszlee’s appointment as IIUM president, Wan Saiful Wan Jan, who is the Minister of Education’s Special Advisor, reportedly said that Dr Maszlee is the right person to bring IIUM back to its international glory.

We believe Dr Maszlee has the potential to bring all 20 public universities and more than 400 private universities and colleges to international glory, so does that mean he has to first become chairman to all of these universities?

GERAK strongly believes that the Minister of Education must reject his appointment as IIUM president and cease the appointment of any more active politicians to university boards.

In line with our earlier proposal, we call upon the Minister to appoint an interim president for IIUM.

This individual would then work together with a variety of internal and external stakeholders to come up with a new search system to appoint the IIUM President and Board members — and even the university’s senior leadership — who are non-partisan, professional, reform driven and competent.

Apart from that, GERAK is also urging the Minister of Education to set up the high-level university reform committee we put forward in our 10-point proposal — a proposal the minister said he supports — with a clear mandate to operate independently for all public universities.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.