Dear students, there are 4 issues highlighted by SRC which we wish to draw your attention to!

1) Finance policy
With this new policy, students are expected to pay more which is currently 100% of their total fees in one trimester in order for them to sit for their final exam. Previously the payment of fees would be as below:

Previous:
Stage Fees payable
1st stage 25%
2nd stage 50%
3rd stage 75%

1st stage is to print exam slip and sit for final exam
2nd stage is print exam slip and register course
3rd stage is view results

But now, they already increased the percentage of all 3 stages in order for students to unbar themselves.

2) Fixed payment

Students are now expected to pay a fixed amount in each trimester. As an example, a student is expected to pay RM13, 000 per academic year if his total fee for the course is RM 39,000. The total of fees to pay would be as below:

Trimester Percentage Amount
Long trimester 40% RM 5,200
Long trimester 40% RM 5,200
Short trimester 20% RM 2,600
Total RM 13,000

This means, the fixed cost of the amount of fees payable by students is based on this assumption regardless of how many subjects the student takes. For example, if the student takes only two out of five subjects in a long trimester, they will still need to pay RM5, 200 for that trimester and the other three subjects

3) Refund policy

In the previous policy, students will get refunded as shown below:
Week of study Percentage that student can be refunded
Week 1 100%
Week 2
Week 3 75%
Week 4
Week 5 50%
Week 6
Week 7 non

But, the new policy mentions that students will not be refunded if they drop their subject(s) after week 2. Students who find the subject hard or are unable to cope before week 6 will not get any refund if they drop the subject. Most of the time, students only get a grasp of the difficulty level of a subject after week 2.

4) 7 Subjects per trimester (New students)

The new batch students are now encouraged to take at least 7 subjects in a trimester. This is because, the university is adopting the 21, 21, 0 credit hours system. This system means that there should be 21 credit hours to take in a long trimester but the short trimester shall be cleared. This will only effect students from Faculty of Management (FOM) Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) and other faculties which are classified as non-professional courses (Faculty of Engineering are not affected)

According to the latest senate meeting with SRC, the senate told that the reason behind this system is because;

i) The short trimester will be allocated for students to do research
ii) Should there be a high failure rate; the faculty will be offering the re-sit paper during the short trimester
iii) It is already a norm in other universities worldwide that they will be having 18 - 21 credit hours for the long trimester (which should be completed in 14 weeks)

Hence, the primary concerns for students are:

i) Unable to cope as the students will have to take more exam papers, while having more assignments to complete. This will also not rule out the probability that students will have more than one test/exam paper to take in a day.

ii) If the short trimester will be time off for students to do research, local students will be going back to their hometown. However, they will still need to pay their expenses which includes house rental and in addition to their university fees although there are no subjects to take (please refer to item 3).

iii) Students think they will have lower grades through this system. Many students try to get on the Dean’s list in the short trimester as they have fewer subjects to take. Hence, they will have higher chance to get Dean’s list. However, with the new system structure, the heavy load of subjects will put more pressure on the students.

Please join our Facebook page at (http://www.facebook.com/SRCMMU)to get the latest updates on upcoming news!

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"Integration through Objectivity, Implementation with Sincerity"

Ahmad Syafiq Bin Ahmad Murshid
Deputy President
Students' Representative Council 2010/2011
Multimedia University
H/P : +6019 4193629
SRC Melaka Office : +6 06-2523464
SRC Cyberjaya Office : +6 03-83125059
Official Email : deputypresident.srcmmu@gmail.com