Chuah's on his own selfish KPI at the expense of good staff
From Anonymous, via e-mail
I refer to the points raised by G Vinod in his article 'Senior Utar academics quit over 'tamper' order' and the reply from Utar. I'd like make several points on the matter.
1. Tampering of marks is a reality since Prof Chuah Hean Teik took over. This is a widespread practice not with one paper but with almost all papers.
Dare him to allow third parties to compare the marks given on students examination answer scripts and the final marks awarded as entered in the system, and everything will be out.
The directive from him is (a) no more than 20 percent failure rates, (b) average marks must be within a certain range and, (c) the standard deviation of the marks must be within (e.g. 8 -12 marks) a certain range.
If those criteria are not met, the lecturer concerned will be asked to re-mark all of the scripts. If still cannot meet target, re-mark again. You have about on an average, five days to finish marking and to key it in.
During the Board of Examiners meeting , the lecturers who do not meet any of the criteria, have to explain verbally and write a report which would be a 'black' mark.
So, how do lecturers go round it?
(i) Forty percent is the passing mark. To reach 40 marks, as much as 7 to 10 marks are added to ensure 'passes'.
(ii) To achieve the average marks and the standard deviations, scripts are tampered with, an original 10 marks will be upgraded to 30 marks. For example, an 84 marks originally awarded will be downgraded to 80 marks or lower. Imagine going through 400 to 500 students for a paper and if the printouts still do not meet the criteria, the whole process is repeated.
The deans and heads of departments all know about it, in fact, lecturers were taught how to do it.
You can bet your last dollar that Chuah is fully aware of this. By denying the existence of tampering in his reply in the Star, he is lying through his teeth.
There was a case where there were 500 students. The exam was on Tuesday and the keying in of the marks was supposed to be the following Monday. Suddenly, the date of the keying in of the marks was pushed forward by Chuah wanted to go to China and the Board of Examiners meeting had to be pushed forward.
The date for keying in of the marks was changed to Friday 12 noon. How to mark 500 answer scripts in two and a half days?. Solution is, rope in six other markers, some not even in the same field as the subject and each was given the marking scheme. Is this fair to the students?
3. If Utar has spent RM18 million for research facilities, then much of the money has gone somewhere else.
4. It is not one or two unhappy staff who have resigned. That 30 percent of the original staff have left is accurate. Academic staff who have vast experience and qualifications left.
In come many very young graduates, some cannot even string two sentences in proper English and also many doctorate holders who are teaching undergraduates. Is this necessary?
Is Chuah trying to enter the world ranking universities by recruiting P HD holders and pressuring academic staff to publish? It is all for his own selfish personal goal his own KPI at the expense of the staff.
5. All the top positions in Utar are occupied by his cronies and all without exception are sycophants who suck up to him so that thinks he is infallible. Chuah is not only arrogant but lack simple human decent behaviour and conduct.
He may be academically highly qualified but he lacks politeness, humility and an utter lack of EQ.
6.When Utar started in 2002, students could enter the accounting programme with a CGPA of 2.75. It was lowered to 2.! 5. Now, this recent semester it is 2.0. What excellence and quality is he talking about?
7. The accounting programme is three years old. (We just started the four-year programme only in the Sg Long campus). After three years (and we would have several thousands of accounting graduates by now), if these students want to go far in their career in accounting, auditing, etc. they have to take the final five papers of the ACCA or CIMA or the four papers from the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
Ask Chuah whether he monitored the graduates on how successful they were in gaining the professional qualifications. Of the first several batches of accounting graduates when they sat the MIA qualifying exams, less then five percent passed.
For the four MIA papers, the result was 100 percent failure. What quality? By the way after the first several batches, they did not let us know results.
The staff are laughing whenever Chuah talks about holistic education, academic excellence and Utar being a top university.
Read:
Restore integrity and good governance in Utar
See What Pakatan Rakyat Gotta Say?
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