is the summer program that tarc do wih sheffield hallam uni recognised by the malaysia government?heard many ppl say its actually quite controversial that 3 months can get a degree from advance diploma. can anyone shed some light here?i had called the useless office in tarc and no one can come clean on it. my son is enrolling in it so you can imagine my anxiety when i hear these.

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Added on March 21, 2012, 3:23 pmA letter to the media from a parent of my son's classmate


Dear All

I’m a father of 3 college going young adults. The eldest just completed his studies while the other 2 younger one is still studying at the same local college in Kuala Lumpur. My Eldest son is did engineering, 2nd son is doing his advance diploma in Accounting and the youngest one doing his A-Levels.


This letter is written as a result of what happened to my eldest son.He graduated with a degree from via the summer program route in UK, which is held in collaboration with the college that he was with.It was a short 3 months program held in collaboration with the local college for student to obtain their Bachelor degree qualification. While embarking on his job search after graduation he was told by many employers during his interview of a few scenarios,1) that his qualification is not being recognized in Malaysia and thus, his application was declined, 2)while some actually told him he will be considered as a diploma graduand and thus, be accorded to the salary range of that level, 3) the worst case was that he was declined outright even when he mentioned that he is willing to start from scratch and be given the opportunity to show what he can do and he proposed a salary of $1500rmfor a start.

Some kind HR Managers and interviewers advised him take a proper recognized degree all over again so that he can be better equipped for his job search. Despite all the disappointment and frustrations, I searched through a few local universities that provided similar bachelor courses to enquire whether he be able to undergo perhaps additional studies in their bachelor degree(in a similar field) and whether he can be given exemptions for the studies but to astonishment, he was told that he has to start from year 2 for his degree studies despite the fact that he had completed more than 4 years of study after his SPM, and had gotten a Diploma, Advance Diploma and a Summer degree, which is a Honours degree in the UK! His previous study was only recognised to be equivalent to that of a diploma. That is a complete waste of time and money that I’ve poured in for so many years, not to mention all the hard work that my son had went through. While I must admit it was partly my fault not to make sure the pathway taken is fully recognized in the industry and the Malaysia Government, it is very sad to know that the college who claimed to be affiliated to the education ministry, with former high ranking minister as its patron and with such long history in Malaysia, is actually providing pathways which are not properly recognised in both the industry and relevant authorities.

Thus I’m writing in today to urge all parents and students who to check with the Ministry of higher education (MOHE) or Malaysia quality assurance (MQA) and even the public service commssion (JPA)before enrolling into any programs, particularly those with overseas link up and too good to be true diploma to degree conversion. I am amazed by how fast and efficient the MOHE and MQA assisted me with my request whole-heartedly and gave me affirmative reply on my query on the recognition on my son qualifications. (Yes, it was informed that the qualification is indeed not recognised in Malaysia) It’s just a very simple and easy step by calling both MOHE and MQA to check on your registered course. Their number can be easily obtained online which makes it so easy to ensure that the pathway taken by students is a proper and valid one.

Lastly, I wished to express my utmost disaapoinment with the UK university in which my son graduated which continues to provide dubious and non-accredited program for pure profit and not even care whether the students degree are even useful or recognised in Malaysia.

Thank you.

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Added on March 24, 2012, 8:59 pmFor the reading pleasure of those students who wants to do Sheffield Hallam University summer program at TARC after advance diploma.

This is the F*#! up attitude of the University people towards my query. In short, the summer program is not recognised by JPA. Read the email from below to top for better understanding.



From: Freddy Lim [mailto:XXXXXXXXX.com]
Sent: 23 March 2012 04:11
To: Wah, Swee Hwa; enquiries@shu.ac.uk;
Subject: Re: Summer program at Sheffield Hallam University

Dear Mr Wah, Director of Sheffield Hallam University, South East Asia office,


I had went to the link you mentioned a few times and called the MQA hotline : 03-79687002 and spoken to the duty officer manning the phone. Please try and call and asked whether your university summer program is recognised or not and you will know. Me and a group of concerned parents had called MQA and JPA, as well as running our own online checks and views. The JPA link you sent, the summer program is not there, so please do not tell me your Universities has 1000 courses etc, the purpose of my email is to ask specifically about the summer program.

Mentioning YOUR UNIVERSITY in the same breath as Harvard University? There is not a comparison nor an example. This is a travesty. Please do not assume you are an Ivy league University. Before you continue your spurious facts, let me kindly enlighten you here, you punch in the keyword "University of Wales" in the same page and you will get this as a recognised overseas university. Therefore, please have all your facts ready before shooting your mouth off, or in this case, keyboards. If my son is going to an Ivy League University, rest assured that i will not be sending queries as such. However, my son is now enrolling onto your University, which not many people out of TARC college had known of and therefore, the result of this email query.




I have never doubted the good intentions of TARC and your University. I m now asking certain questions, which i m sure you will agree that as a parent and the person who is paying for the tutition fees, have the right to do so.


Teaching me or telling me that my son should enter government Universities is uncalled for and it seemed ridiculous that you are even sugessting it. Are you saying that TARC students are not suitable to enter Civil Service? or are you implying that I had made the wrong choice by sending my son to TARC and now I have no choice and should not be asking so many questions? In which ever ways, i m very disappointed that someone representing the University replied in such a condescending attitude.

Using your faulted logic and example of TARC students lecturing in Sheffield Hallam University and working as government servant in the UK etc, i think you entirely missed the point i m driving here. Totally amazing to me and my group of TARC student parents, whom i had copied in this email as well.

Also, you mentioned that you do not have the knowledge how many students are working within the government department is again uncalled for as it wasn't part of my query in the 1st place. However, since you mentioned this, then I would like to ask "do you mean to say that students who graduated from the summer program usually do not go to government departments or is it just to camoflage the fact that they are rejected from serving in the civil service or worst, are you implying that the graduates from your summer program is too high and almighty and do not need to work in the malaysia civil service?" Please be clear here.

Finally, i m very surprised at the ever condescending and pompous attitude that you had displayed here. Failing to answer my queries, going round in circles with spurious arguments and dodgy examples is already bad enough. The fact that you are now asking me to withdraw my son ASAP, without even the slightest intentions of answering my queries takes your condescending attitude to the next higher level. It does seemed to us that Sheffield Hallam University condone such attitude.

I have no intention of arranging a meet up, neither do the rest of the parents concerned as your burlesque reply and spurious examples had made all of us decide to withdraw our kids from your program and i will defintely make an official withdrawal when i m back in KL in another 10 days.

Thank you very much for assisting me on making the choice to withdraw. I guess my son will be very much transformed after this decision.

Freddy Lim

From: "Wah, Swee Hwa" <S.H.Wah@shu.ac.uk>
To: Freddy Lim <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com>
Sent: Friday, 23 March 2012, 0:59
Subject: RE: Summer program at Sheffield Hallam University

Dear Mr. Freddy,

May I know the name of the MQA Officer that you spoke to as I also need to ask him for clarification. If you go to their Malaysia Qualfication Register; link as per below:-

http://www.mqa.gov.my/mqr/english/ecarianakr.cfm

You only will find Higher Education Institution in Malaysia. Try to type in "Harvard University", and you will get "Your search does not return any result. Please try again." So does this means Harvard University is not recognised by MQA and Malaysia Government ?

JPA on the other hand we do have quite a number of courses registered with them previously but definitely not all our 1,000 courses are registered. You can search for the qualification in this JPA website:

http://pengiktirafan.jpa.gov.my/

The collaboration between TARC and Sheffield Hallam University is with full good intention to provide high quality education to students that are looking for cross-cultural exposure so that it will benefit the student when they are in the work force.

As for government job, every government have their own employment policy. As far as I know if your son wants to work for the government, he should study in UM, UKM, UPM, UTM,USM and other govenrment universities which usually will be easier to be absorbed to the civil service.

At the same breath, I don't really know how many TARC students actually work with the government department ?

We do have TARC students that are lecturing now in Sheffield Hallam University, earning UK Government salary as a government servant.

May I suggest that we meet up so that I can give you more detail explanation.

Let me assure you that there is no obligation at all for you to put your son through this program. The choice is yours and if you think this program is not suitable for your son then do withdraw your son from the program soonest possible.

Thank you so much for your input and hope we can meet. (I should be back by next Wednesday)


Warm regards,

Wah Swee Hwa
Director
Sheffield Hallam University
South East Asia Office
Suite 19A-21-3A, Level 21
UOA Center, 19 Jalan Pinang
50450 Kuala Lumpur
MALAYSIA
Mobile: +6013-602 8833
Tel: +603 21712239
Fax: +603 21712396
Email: s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk<mailto:s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk>
Web: www.shu.ac.uk

________________________________
From: Freddy Lim [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 2:36 PM
To: Wah, Swee Hwa
Subject: Re: Summer program at Sheffield Hallam University

Hi Mr Wah

From my tele conversation yesterday with the MQA officer and also the JPA officer, they mentioned that some UK and overseas Universities are recognised by them. Therefore, there is some contradiction in your reply by saying that MQA is only relevant in Malaysia. I had done some checks on my own and realised that your University is indeed not recognized by MQA, MOHE and most importantly JPA, while some UK Universities are. This means that if my son wants to enter civil service in Malaysia, he will not be able to do so as a degree level applicant with the summer program degree from SHU! This has been confirmed to me by Encik Mohd from JPA when i called him and there had been many cases that students were being rejected with the degree from your University!!!

I m very disappointed that the much touted and popular program in TARC and your University is actually not recognised by our own malaysia government!!

My son applied for the building and construction management.

Would you clarify please? It is making me very worried as well.

Freddy Lim

________________________________
From: "Wah, Swee Hwa" <S.H.Wah@shu.ac.uk>
To: Freddy Lim <XXXXXXXXXXXX.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 March 2012, 21:43
Subject: RE: Summer program at Sheffield Hallam University

Dear Mr. Freddy,

Thank you for your email.

MQA recognition is for local institution and does not cover overseas universities. Sheffield Hallam University is a public university owned by the government of UK and are subject to "QAA" quality audit.

So MQA is only relevant in Malaysia Higher Education Institution that delivers program in Malaysia soil not in UK. For UK program you should look at QAA instead.

Hope this explains. May I know what is the course that your son apply ?

I'm currently in Vietnam so might have intermittent internet connection and thus delay in answering you.

Thank you.

Warm regards,

Wah Swee Hwa
Director
Sheffield Hallam University
South East Asia Office
Suite 19A-21-3A, Level 21
UOA Center, 19 Jalan Pinang
50450 Kuala Lumpur
MALAYSIA
Mobile: +6013-602 8833
Tel: +603 21712239
Fax: +603 21712396
Email: s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk<mailto:s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk><mailto:s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk<mailto:s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk>>
Web: www.shu.ac.uk

________________________________
From: Freddy Lim [XXXXXXXXXXXXX.com<mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com>]
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 12:08 PM
To: s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk<mailto:s.h.wah@shu.ac.uk>
Subject: Fw: Summer program at Sheffield Hallam University

Dear Mr Wah

My son had enrolled onto the summer program(Business) at your university for this coming intake and already paid the deposit.I had some queries regarding ths program. I went to TARC last week to ask and was then given your email as the most senior representative of the University in malaysia so i like to check with you something. Some of my friends informed me that tis program is not registered nor approved by the Malaysia government, is that true? Is the program recognised by MQA and the JPA? i know TARC and your university is very well established but not sure why people are saying this. Can you please let me know?

Appreciate your prompt response. Thank you very much.


Freddy Lim




This post has been edited by fredolim: Mar 24 2012, 08:59 PM

Yes fully agree.

Thank goodness the Sheffield Hallam University dubious thing is being exposed here so that parents and students know that this is indeed not recognised in Malaysia.

Those who have doubts, i strongly suggest you check out the above websites or call the hotline.

Appreciate your balanced view on this. SHU is one of those former polytechnics that was upgraded, alongside many others. The gist of the whole issue is really the arrogant and pompous attitude of how this SHU view our enquiries. I had managed to speak to a few of my son's seniors who returned from the 3 month summer program, it is along the same line as your example mentioned. They possessed a UK degree, earned in 3 months, no need for student visa, pay 30+K rm. Their level of english is horrendous and i still cannot believe they hold a UK degree! The whole reason is the low quality and dodgy practice of SHU which goes all out to skimp profits from Malaysian students and find the shortest and easiest way to get them a UK degree, ignoring all procedures, processes and most importantly quality.

By the same token, just because it is TARC college and SHU, they are able to get away with it. Hope you get what i mean. The sad thing is there are hundreds of students going on this route blindly, unaware and uninformed of the fact that is is a highly questionable practice.

I agree with you absolutely on the no free lunch, no short cut and earning a degree with hardship. I have been receiving flak for the longest time in the forum when i pointed out the questionable arrangement of SHU and TARC in conferring the short cut summer degree.

A genuine degree earned in a questionable arrangement does open a can of worms. The long shot of this means the University name will be in tatters eventually as employers will know that students from this program do not necessarily possessed the expected learning outcomes due to the "crash course" and short cut path to the degree.

Our education is in a such a sad state whereby everything is being compressed and condensed, without really giving 2 hoots about the impact on our students and how the learning and knowledge transfer should be. We have 3rd rate UK University like SHU coming in and trying hard to impress with their quality(which is sorely lacking if their summer program graduates quality, especially the English proficiency is any indication!!) and designing new ways to beat the system with the ultimate objective of profit. Nothing else really matters.

hahaha, interesting observation on the private uni and yes, it has become an absolute joke on how some of the insitutions here got upgraded really and it is a matter of time when the industry and employers will be able to tell the pretenders from the real McCoy. TARC is still quite respected and solid for the accounting program, which they claim recently in the papers that they supplied 60% of the entire accounting profession in Malaysia. The same cannot be said for the other programs really, i think it has lost that edge and the gloss that it had previously, especially with all these short cut and compressed program, which is nothing more than a money squeezing commercial activitiy and came as no surprise since education is indeed big money nowadays in Malaysia.

There was a very interesting example was in my email correspondance with SHU office regarding this summer program. They had claimed to be the one of the UK largest University and so on and so forth but was kept pretty silent when i mentioned no one else had even heard of them outside of TARC! They even try associating themselves with the ivy league Unis which i found to be hilarious and delusional really! Private Unis, local unis and now overseas Unis etc are just simply getting too hardwired about profits to really care for the students. The least that could had happened was for at least our governmental agencies to recognized them, though it might not be the best system, at least it provided some form of assurance even if it is a joke. Without even our government's recognition and accreditation, the joke then becomes a comedy, an expensive one that cost almost 50K rm for 3 months including all the living expenses and fees!

University of Nottingham is one good example of a respectable institution with a branch campus here, they have one in china too, Monash and Curtin are also good examples of these reputable Universities on their internationalization agenda. We have also some upcoming UK University like reading and southampton down south starting branch campuses which it not too bad really.

The shadow of our colonial past somehow remains in many facades of our public system which probably explain why doing the final year UK degree is one of the safest way as you had mentioned. Tsinghua Uni, University of Amsterdam,Technical University of Munich probably churns out some of the best students in the world . However,students from these universities may faced some problems if the student were to get the prefessional bodies accrediatation in Malaysia! Weird isn't it?

A recognized degree opens the 1st door, whether or not my kid makes it past 2nd and subsequent doors later his work life is really up to him and his own capability. Unless there is a paradigm shift in the policy whereby education quality is being regulated and emphasis is placed on quality, skills and academic rigours over short cut pathways, profit maximization and titles collection, I'm afraid we will continue to get stuck in this rut.

Nowadays, SPM can move on to diploma in Malaysia. It has become a norm. Unlike the good old days where HSC only can do diploma. Quality wise, i can safely conclude that standard has drop tremendously. It is my wish that my boy went on and get his degree, rather than just a diploma or advance diploma. Sad to say, TARC is unlike its old days really.

The so call EC paper as far as i understand, no longer apply to the diploma student, it is mostly for the Universities and university college. It is either your course is accredited by BEM or it is not. For diploma at TARC, it is not.

Yeah that sounds right. Now with a diploma, one can easily take the degree pathway after the diploma. Entrance standard been dropping all the way. With so many mickey mouse Universities, my favourite example would be Sheffield Hallam University, who would be willing to sacrafice standards by compacting and compressing the teaching and delivery time for the sake of profits, the only way forward is down the entry requirements to up the intake and profits.