Last month, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the government had no plans to repeal the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971, better known as AUKU or UUCA. But at the Youth Empowerment Fair on March 19, 2023, our Prime Minister announced that the sections of AUKU that limit academic freedom will be repealed, and that this would include the sections limiting the freedom of lecturers. The PM did concur with the Higher Education Minister that the entire Act cannot be repealed, as AUKU is a comprehensive Act with many sections that deal with other matters. This revives the decades-old debate about whether the Universities and University Colleges Act has outlived its purpose. We discuss the need to reform or repeal this act with Prof. Emeritus Datuk Dr Hj Shad Saleem Faruqi (Holder of the Tunku Abdul Rahman Chair, University of Malaya) and Vince Tan (Co-chair, the UM Malaysian Bar Constitutional Literacy Initiative).

Law & Behold is a monthly series which aims to arm Malaysians with constitutional literacy, and is done in collaboration with The Malaysian Bar, the University of Malaya's Faculty of Law, and the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR).

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/macloo/

Produced by: Juliet Jacobs

Presented by: Juliet Jacobs

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Categories:  Law/Activism,  education

Tags:  constitutional law,  the federal constitution of malaysia,  auku,  uuca,  universities and university colleges act 1971,  academic freedom,  freedom of expression,