UMSU Statement Following the university’s administration irresponsibility and incompetency in dealing with students' module registration issue, - FEBRUARY 15th, 2024

UMSU is very disappointed with the university’s administration irresponsibility and incompetency in dealing with students' module registration issue, forcing students to wait all day to register for their courses, from 8.30 am until the late evening. Although this problem occurs every year, there is still no ounce of improvement effort from the university’s administration. In fact, this should not even be an issue to begin with, considering that University Malaya is always ranked first in Malaysia and 65th globally. Unfortunately, the university’s rankings do not reflect reality.:

The following is a summary of the issues that UMSU would like to highlight:

1. The inability of the MAYA system to accommodate the high volume of students during the registration process.

As usual, module registration began at 8.30am, and the MAYA system was disrupted, even until now. The Information Technology Center (PTM) has also repeatedly given false hope to students as the notices distributed are unreliable and have wasted students’ time who waited for the system to be fixed. Logically, since the module registration was already fixed at 8.30 am, PTM should have been ready and responsible in ensuring that the system runs smoothly before the registration period commences. Although UMSU acknowledges PTM’s small number of staff, this simply means the upper echelons of the university should not be turning a blind eye and instead, should increase the number of staff to operate the MAYA system and finally upgrade their centuries old server.

2. Lack of capacity for elective courses.

The slots for elective subjects offered by the faculty are also limited, causing students to have to compete for the available slots. Students depend on their own internet’s speed to access the website simultaneously, and indirectly contributes to the system’s disruption. If the subjects offered are sufficient, students will not have to fight for slots and the number of people accessing the MAYA system can be reduced. The university’s administration should also take into account the thousands of students accessing the website and upgrade their server. In addition, the faculties should respectively increase the number of lecturers to ensure that there is enough workforce to accommodate the increase of slots.

3. Module registration is done before the announcement of exam results.

The Department of Administration and Academic Services (AASD) has announced the date of announcement of results for Semester 1 2023/2024, which is on 24th February 2024. However, module registration for the final and middle levels is before the announcement of results for Semester 1 2023/2024. The timeline that has been set is burdensome as students are unaware if they have passed or failed their previous subjects, thus affecting the students' plans in registering for certain modules.

Considering all the issues above, the following are UMSU’s suggestions for long-term solutions:
a) Reviewing the course structure for each programme in the faculty to ensure sufficient slots for students.

b) Structure of modules at the faculty level should be designed by taking into account the amount and demands from students.

c) To overcome the issue of lack of classroom availability, teaching and learning activities for SHE, KELF and faculties’ elective courses are implemented in hybrid mode.

While for short-term solution:
a) The module registration system should be divided into the “faculty level” and the “total credit level” to ensure that the MAYA system is able to accommodate the number of students who access the website.

As the premier university in Malaysia, UM's failure to ensure that the module registration process runs smoothly is regrettable and should not be repeated again. Based on the latest information, the module registration dates for all levels have been changed rather abruptly by the university’s administration. UMSU hopes that the university’s administration will be more proactive and take effective actions in upgrading the MAYA system as a whole, and consider the suggestions forwarded by UMSU.

WORK FOR ALL
UNIVERSITY MALAYA STUDENTS’ UNION 2023/2024
15TH FEBRUARY 202

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