Varsity students for community service - NST

PUTRAJAYA: April 18, 2008

The Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 will be amended to allow students in institutions of higher learning to do community service.

Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Idris Haron said yesterday the proposed amendments would be tabled in Parliament in the middle of the year."We want to encourage and give freedom to university students so they can be involved in community programmes, not in politics," he said after launching a human rights seminar, organised by the ministry and the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) at his office.Idris said this way, students could contribute to the community and they would also be freer to express their views on communal issues.Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin had recently said the amendments would provide students as well as universities more power and freedom.

A preliminary study by the ministry revealed that the Act, as it stands, could hamper the creativity and achievement of students and university management.Khaled had also said the amendments would give universities more autonomous power to run their respective set-ups.On the proposal for human rights education committees to be established in universities, Idris said these would initially be set up at the ministry's level.