Poorly-maintained uni hostels, facilities are accidents waiting to happen, MOHE told
THE administration of University Utara Malaysia (UUM) and all relevant authorities must expedite the necessary investigation into the sudden death of an undergraduate who died in a UUM hostel in Sintok, Kedah last Saturday.
Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii said this in response to news of student Vinosiny Sivakumar who was found dead in her hostel room.
“A clear timeline must be given for the investigation to be conducted in the spirit of transparency while a clear and comprehensive plan must be put in place by the Higher Education Ministry (MOHE) to address the issues of the students’ safety and security as well as the proper maintenance of university hostels and facilities,” Dr Yii said.
“This is a tragic accident that could have been avoided. This raises serious questions about the safety of the student community not just in this particular campus but in all campuses across the country especially when it comes to the sub-standard safety maintenance of all university facilities.”
A video uploaded to YouTube had alleged that Vinosiny had died from an electric shock, and while initial investigation suggested that the second-year accounting student had suffered from seizure, post-mortem results are still pending.
According to Dr Yii, Vinosiny’s death is not an isolated case and that throughout the past few years many other similar incidents had occurred.
The latest reported incident was the fire at a dorm room on Universiti Malaya (UM) campus which came after the university’s management had allegedly failed to fix a faulty fan above the bed despite the student having reported the issue twice.
“All these points to a bigger issue of safety and maintenance in all student hostels and university facilities which had been neglected for so long,” Dr Yii pointed out.
“Based on many feedback from students, it is not a secret as to how poorly these facilities are maintained and they are ‘ticking timebombs’ and are accidents waiting to happen.”
Dr Yii who is also the DAPSY national chief said this is why an independent audit and inspection must be conducted immediately on all hostels and university facilities across the country to identify those that are safety hazards or are in urgent need of repairs.
“I strongly urge MOHE to release the necessary allocations as soon as possible and remove all unnecessary bureaucracy to ensure that the upgrades and maintenance of all university hostels and facilities can be done as soon as possible to ensure that such a tragic incident does not happen again,” he said. – May 25, 2022
Typical of almost all Government or Government-related functions in the last 2 years since the initial MCO started in March 2020.
ReplyDeleteMaintenance , fault, repair reports are facing major delays being rectified or not being attended to at all.
One wonders if the government employees, all of whom were still receiving full pay , and even additional incentives during the entire period, are still doing their work.