It has been close to 4 months since Abbod went to the media personally to allege that his supervisors and Universiti Malaya had stolen his PhD project. During this period, the Universiti Malaya Students' Union (UMSU) had been actively reaching out to both parties to ascertain the facts on the matter, and is aware that both parties have even lodged police reports. However, there has been no closure to this matter to date, and Abbod is left hanging without any decision and without any chances of continuing his education. The following is the evidence presented by Abbod during the press conference that took place on 30th August 2022: bit.ly/EvidenceAbbod The arguments given by Abbod are reiterated below: 1. There had been similar cases involving the same lecturer in the past. Abbod has provided documentary evidence that in 2018, a PhD student had brought a legal action against a private limited company in which one of his current supervisors was working at. Ultimately, the supervisor settled the matter out of court. This suggests that the supervisor probably knew that he was at fault. Today, Abbod's case involves the same lecturer working in the same company, as the managing director. After so many years, no action has been taken by the university against the said lecturer and any other involved person(s) nor at least to forewarn students regarding this matter. 2. The university management has allowed the allegedly thieving lecturers to continue supervising Abbod. The lecturers failed to provide any feedback or response when Abbod sent in any correspondence regarding inquiries or updates on his work progress. Furthermore, the lecturers failed to return the data collected and the system developed by Abbod by changing the passwords. Finally, they gave him an unsatisfactory progress report, prompting the university to terminate his candidacy for PhD. This is irrational and unprofessional as the university should have changed the supervisors entirely upon receiving Abbod's complaint that his work has been stolen. 3. The university management has assigned a 3rd supervisor who has a conflict of interest. Instead of removing the existing supervisors, the university management retained them while adding a new supervisor. However, the new supervisor was previously also a PhD candidate under the allegedly thieving lecturers, giving room for reasonable doubt that he is able to act fairly and independently. The new supervisor then allegedly continued the practice of ignoring Abbod’s submitted work, and jointly with the existing supervisors, graded him as unsatisfactory. 4. The university management had put Abbod at an unequal if not weak “bargaining” position. Abbod retains a voice recording of one of the staff in the Academic and International's Department responses when the issues of the supervisors' unresponsiveness and theft were raised. In the recording, there is an oral agreement that the Faculty of Engineering had proposed to extend his candidacy for three semesters, with all finances covered. She then proceeded to remark the case as "a very, very unusual case" before continuing to gaslight Abbod by saying that this was "very generous of the Faculty; I have not heard of any Faculty or any similar proposal" being offered before this. However, all these offerings are meaningless when the alleged thieving lecturers are still allowed to supervise and grade him, as this would ultimately still allow them to grade him unsatisfactory and allow the university to terminate his PhD. Furthermore, it is essential to note that contrary to what the university management told the media, ie. "It is the university’s policy that all academic research and projects are its properties”. It must be noted that a specific private limited company has sold the data and system developed by Abbod in his PhD project to other third parties. Based on the UM Holdings official website, the said private limited company is NOT a subsidiary of UM Holdings. The sale of the system suggests that the project is not a property of UM but the said company. ![]()
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
UMSU © Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved
|
Proudly powered by Weebly
|