Universiti Malaya students today condemned a purported proposal to impose a five gigabyte a month quota on free Internet on campus.

This comes as public tertiary institutions nationwide brace for budget cuts for the Higher Education Ministry in 2016.

Universiti Malaya Assocation of New Youth (Umany) president Ho Chi Yang said the proposal was planned to be implemented in March next year, at the start of the new semester.

“Even though the government promised that there will be no increase in tuition fees, in reality, there have been proposed increases in other fees,” Ho said at a press conference today.

The annual funding for UM is expected to be slashed by nearly 30 percent, down to RM463 million next year, under Budget 2016, Ho said.

Umany and the Universiti Malaya Muslim Students Association (PMIUM) said this would further burden students, particularly those from faculties that rely heavily on Internet access to conduct research for their course work.

Ho ( photo ) said even though the proposal is still at a discussion stage, students are already feeling impact of the budget cut on UM’s administration.

“Based on our own survey among 1,000 students, the majority of the respondents have rejected the proposal, which they described as a ridiculous idea,” he said.

He added that the findings of their survey would be presented to the relevant department at a dialogue session scheduled for next Tuesday.

PMIUM exco member Suhail Wan Azahar claimed that UM’s Student Representative Council (MPP) should have played a more active role to oppose the proposal.

“This issue is closely linked to their role to champion the students’ welfare.

“We are disappointed with the level of commitment shown by the MPP in raising this matter,” Suhail said.

However Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor Prof Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin has denied allegations that the university would introduce a quota on free internet access.

In a statement released today, he said there would be no limit imposed on Wifi access within the campus.

‘UM has other sources of income’

In a response to Budget 2016 that was announced on Oct 23, UM issued a statement on Oct 26 to reassure the public that it would not be raising tuition fees to mitigate impact of the cut.

Amin said the university has other sources of income through its subsidiaries, in line with its target of self-generating 50 percent of its total operating expenditure.

One of the moves being considered, Amin added, is to open UM’s medical degree programme to foreigners, as part of the university’s overall effort to establish its reputation as a global university.

The government had announced an allocation of RM13.378 billion for higher education next year, representing five percent of its overall budget.

This a reduction of RM2.4 billion from last year’s budget and it will affect 19 out of 20 public universities.

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