exclusive After eight months of silence from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) on the outcome of their respective appeals against termination of their services, lecturers Dr Azly Abdul Rahman and Dr Mutiara Mohamad wonder if they will ever be reinstated.

Azly and Mutiara, who are married to each other, were told to leave the cognitive sciences and education faculty with effect from Dec 8 last year for failure to sign the Akujanji (pledge of loyalty), as all employees in the public sector are required to do.

In a letter dated March 17, 2004 from the disciplinary committee stating that the pair had broken the code of conduct, they were also accused of failure to report for work on completion of their doctoral studies in the United States.

(They had gone to the US in 1997 and had then written to UUM on Sept 5, 2004 to ask for no-pay leave extension up to September next year, citing a need to stabilise their personal financial situation as the reason for wanting to prolong their stay.)

However, the committee made its decision at a meeting on Dec 7, stating in a two-page letter that the two were "found guilty" and that their services would be terminated with effect from Dec 9.

The letter, dated Dec 23, also gave them 30 days of receipt in which to lodge an appeal, which they did on Jan 1 this year.

Now a malaysiakini columnist, Azly said by email that the university had construed their refusal to sign the Surat Akujanji (loyalty pledge letter) as ingkar perintah (defiance of commands).

"It has been eight months. We have not heard from UUM after sending our appeal letter," he said.

The two, who had taught in UUM for more than five years, are now based in New Jersey where they are serving as educators.

Several attempts to reach UUM vice-chancellor Dr Nordin Kardi for comment this evening were unsuccessful.

PM informed

Azly and Mutiara also wrote to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Jan 1, detailing their plight in a 19-page letter which was made available to malaysiakini today, in addition to other relevant documents.

In this, they reiterated the contents of their appeal to the disciplinary committee - this had questioned specific clauses of the Akujanji pledge, and indicated that they would not sign it without first getting clarification.

The letter read: "We (are) sure that the university has produced its own version (of Akujanji adapted to the needs of its academicians), being a top Malaysian management university with 20 years of management excellence that works in teams to produce democratic decisions.

"We (are) sure that the university can think for itself in deciding what directive to adopt and what to revise and enculturalise."

They also asked what "might constitute something that will be interpreted as ingkar perintah from the point of view of practice", how far academics can go in imparting knowledge to students, as well as objective criteria for interpreting "violations" of the pledge.

To this, the university faxed a response dated Sept 22, 2004 giving a clause by clause elaboration of the Akujanji that was produced by the Public Services Department.

Stock answers

However, Azly told malaysiakini that the university should answer the questions he and Mutiara had posed "instead of giving us a stock answer that was crafted for all civil servants".

"We believe academicians should be given a different version of (the) explanation. They (the management) should revise the Akujanji . They should set up an academic freedom committee that will produce a revised version (that will guarantee academic freedom for social justice)."

If reinstated, they added, they would be prepared to sign such a revised version of the pledge.

"I taught the courses 'Ilmu Pemikiran dan Etika' (Thinking Skills and Ethics) (at UUM) and I was fired for asking questions in a university that offers those foundation courses?" Azly told malaysiakini in an email.

"But I wish to educate more than aggravate. This is essentially what I am at heart and will always be - an educator for critical consciousness. Human beings have their follies, and worse, if they create institutions to hide behind.

"Our role is to illuminate others on how to read these institutions so that human beings hiding behind them can be seen through the walls."

The sacking of Azly and Mutiara came in the wake of the controversial terminations of two other top academics - Universiti Malaya's Dr Terence Edmund Gomez and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's Prof P Ramasamy .

Gomez was later re-instated after the intervention of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

We took the road not taken (joint column by Azly Rahman and Mutiara Mohamad)

The Akujanji letter

Crisis in higher education