Today, sometime around 10am in the morning, a meeting was held between the the Staff and Students of MIIM and their parents, and the Task Force set up to handle the current issue of cleaning up the mess that has resulted when the Staff and Students of MIIM were evicted from our campus at Wangsa Maju Section 5. This was a result of around half a million ringgit of unpaid rent to TV3. The meeting was held at the De Palma Hotel in Ampang.

Those present on stage as part of the Task Force were, Encik Zulkifli the Parent Representative, Puan Sharoni as Head of Academic Affairs of MIIM, Encik Nizam representative of the Management (I think), En Latif the Chairperson of MIIM, a representative of Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and his associate, and a representative from PTPTN. Also present on stage was Student Representative Kumaran Rajamooney.

The meeting started with the usual introductions and customary prayers (doa) for the Muslims, and a speech from En. Zulkifli explaining the current situation in brief. En Zul would also play a part as a buffer between the Task Force and everyone else.

Points delivered by speakers

The first speaker was the representative of the MOHE, briefly going over the action plan that was to be taken to resolve the problems that existed. One of the actions the Task Force decided to take was to send the students who were studying in their final semester to learn their theory in SAL Institute at Pudu. This of course was met by disagreement by the seniors who were sitting at the back. What followed was an UMNO like statement stating that we are a democratic country and then blabbering about how we should not close our hearts to learning, as when this happens, you can be sent to study at Oxford or even under a coconut tree (I swear I am not making this up) but your education would be pointless since you have closed your heart to learning. He of course was probably oblivious to the fact that the seniors, all of us in fact, still wanted to learn. We just didn’t want to learn at SAL.

After the MOHE representative had done his rambling, it was time for our much beloved SAL Tyrant MIIM Chairperson En. Latif to deliver his speech, which lacked any coherent or important details or made any sense.

Next up was En. Nizam representing the responsible half of the management or whatever his job really is. His speech like others was full of rainbows and clouds and butterflies which was extremely fascinating if it actually had to do with anything with what we wanted to know. Thankfully, En. Nizam’s rainbow spewing was cut short by a guardian of a student who requested that everything be cut short and straight to the point much to En. Zul’s agreement. The points presented were:
1. It was revealed that Students from Semester 1 to 6 were put on extended leave, and as we found out from Pn. Sharoni later, that leave was extended until the 14th of February 2008.
2. It is confirmed that a new campus had been acquired at Taman Melewati, later revealed after a Q&A session to be at Wisma Lembaga Juru Ukur Tanah near the MIA building. This campus is under renovation and it is expected that renovations will be complete by the end of January 2008 and that the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA, formerly known as LAN) and MOHE would be monitoring progress of all the progress and also all the actions that were taken starting now until MIIM has been fully re-established.

Pn Sharoni was the next speaker, revealing the action plan for November until January. The Action plan is as follows.
1. Students undergoing practical will continue with their practical. Media Prima has also extended its hand in offering those who did not get a company to work with, and offering to let them partake their practical with any company under Media Prima.
2. Semester 7 students taking courses in Diploma in Broadcast Management (DBM) and Diploma in Multimedia Production (DMP) as well as those working on their final projects are offered to continue their studies in SAL institute starting December. She highly advises the students to do so, because the lecturers will have more time to focus on the students instead of other work, and for the first time, Lecturers were allowed to join Instructors and Students doing their final project.
3. Final semester students who do not meet the required credit hours may do their practicals first and then cover for their credit hours later once the college has been re-established. This is however according to Pn. Sharoni, under discussion with MOHE.
4. Convocation would take place in March instead of February.

Pn Rohani the Head of Student Welfare who was not on stage but probably part of the Task Force came and delivered some more points, namely:
1. Transportation and accommodation for the students who would be going to learn at SAL Institute. It was said that students would be given lodging at some apartments if they so wished, and that said apartments would be rendezvous points for picking up students and bringing them to SAL.
2. Students who wished to book equipment for shooting were told that they still had to go through the same procedure.
3. The situation of the 1st Semester Students living in accomodation MIIM provided was being looked into due to the extended leave given.

Q&A Session
There were two Q&A Sessions held at the meeting, one for the Parents and one for the Students.
The parents went first, amongst the things that were said were mostly sarcastic comments criticizing the management of SAL MIIM, such as being able to afford booking a hotel ballroom for a meeting but not being able to pay rent, and criticizing the college for not taking any early action despite months and maybe years of notices. Although one parent did say we should put faith in the Task Force and the Management.
The questions that were asked concerned loan worries, the issuing of diplomas for students who have completed their studies, refunds for students who paid deposits, and proper ways to contact the Management without getting some automated machine answering.

The MOHE went first in answering the questions, although what he said had nothing to do with questions, typical UMNO action. He stated that according to some legislations, the MOHE could shut down an IPTS if it was endangering the welfare of students or was against national interest.
En. Nizam responded that PTPTN and MARA have been contacted concerning the loans and that student loans have been extended and put on halt while the extended leave is in effect. Refunds were also being processed and some Semester 6 and 7 students
would be receiving refunds soon.

After much debacle and promise giving took place, the Students turn to ask questions came. Among the questions that were asked were
1. Is the confirmation letter that a student has finished his/her studies valid in other countries (in the event a diploma had not been issued)
2. The validity of visas issued to foreign students
3. Why Finance asked for unsettled payments even if they were settled
4. Does MIIM have solid financing so as to settle their problems
5. Why a new intake was done despite upper management knowing about the eviction before hand.
6. Concerning equipment and facilities for Semester 7 students doing their final project.
7. Concerning repeat papers and rechecking of results

Besides this questions several issues were also brought up
1. The long wait some students had endured to get their diploma which they still have not received after almost 1 year of completing studies.
2. A memorandum that was issued by the student body to “improve” MIIM management
3. In reference to previously mentioned question 5, the same student quoted legislations that stated that an IPTS or its Management can be fined and convicted if found guilty for something like false advertising, in this case, falsely advertising a secure college.
4. The need of assurance that MIIM will not face another issue like this again, that MIIM will have better equipment to facilitate the new campus as well as regular maintenance of equipment and assurance of better two way communication between MIIM representatives and SAL Management and the Board of Directors.

In response to this, the associate of the MOHE representative answered that any problems concerning immigration and continuing studies abroad be referred to them. He also said that the memorandum was being given serious consideration and that investigations are underway to determine whether SAL MIIM Management was guilty of false advertising.
Pn. Sharoni added that for the equipment, besides what was mentioned earlier by Pn. Rohani, that computers would also be provided for those students who needed to use computers to do their work, and that students only need be present at SAL when presenting their proposals and so on, not when they need to do shooting.

Also before I finish this off, in relation to the questions posed by a parent during the Q&A session, the contact numbers for the management are as follows

The Office : 03-20728598
En. Nizam: 017-3317224
Pn Sharoni : 012-2147801 / 017-6170943