Ex-professor urges external probe into USM medical faculty exam leak

 

A retired Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) professor is urging an independent panel of external professors to probe recent claims against the integrity of examinations at the USM medical faculty.

A postgraduate medical student had recently complained of favouritism, bullying and discrimination, and the bad attitude of his lecturers and professors in the university, including the leaking of examination questions to favoured students.

“Earlier, I suggested the university’s ombudsman deal with the issue, but now I feel it is not practical as internal inquiry will not help to resolve the problem.

“I would suggest an independent panel from outside, like appointing professors from Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, as the investigations will be impartial and the panel members are not obliged to the people in the complaint list,” said Professor Dr Omar Shawkataly, who was a USM senate member for five terms and sat on the USM board of governors for two terms.

He also urged the Higher Education Ministry and USM’s Legal Department to view the matter seriously as it could have an adverse impact on the university’s standing and impair its ability to attract international students.

“The image of the USM is important as public confidence in the institution is of utmost importance as a check and balance must exist in the system for the USM to retain its standard and image as an international education institution,” Omar added.

Higher Education Ministry says matter resolved

The student, who is also a medical officer, has alleged that exam questions were given to favoured students, and those who are not in the lecturers’ good books were often given low grades.

He also claimed that there is a lack of transparency in grading even though the MRCS (Membership Examination of the Surgical Royal Colleges of Great Britain and Ireland) exam requires students to be shown which component they failed so they can improve on it in the future.

“Examination results are kept as a secret in USM. Students are simply told they pass or fail without knowing why. If this continues, our universities can never reach international standards even though the faculty has been around for decades,” the student said.

The student said he had also lodged a complaint to the Ministry of Higher Education but had received an email stating the matter had been resolved.

“I am shocked on seeing the email, as the ministry replied without conducting any investigations on his complaints of examination results,” he said.

USM’s dean of the School of Medical Sciences, Prof Dr Abdul Razak Sulaiman, had earlier said it had been the university’s culture to take all comments seriously and dissect them for quality control purposes.

“As an early response to these issues, I would like to say that we have 20 masters programmes for doctors. Candidates in the programmes will be assessed by examiners from different institutions (universities and the Health Ministry), including external examiners who have no prior knowledge about the candidates.

“The faculty has a committee to vet all written questions. The essay questions are graded by more than one lecturer based on a marking scheme, while the multiple-choice questions are checked by a computer system.

“The syllabus is made available to the candidates. Students were given feedback on which section they have failed,” he said. - Mkini