Not all is well at the National Defence University (UPNM), a tertiary educational institution of about 3,000 students where the vice-chancellor is a military officer.

Following an alleged cover-up of a sexual harassment case at the university, another claim has surfaced – this time regarding a student who was caught plagiarising but had been allowed by campus authorities to graduate from the institution.

In a police report obtained by Malaysiakini, campus administrators were accused of “abuse of power” and “fraud” in their handling of the plagiarism case.

It also named its former vice-chancellor, Zulkifli Zainal Abidin, as one of the people allegedly responsible. Zulkifli presently serves as the Armed Forces chief.

According to the report, after being caught for plagiarising her final paper, the student had been allowed a two-week grace period to fix her work before re-submitting it to the marking panel.

During the grace period, however, a new marking panel was set up by the campus administration and it graded the student an A- for the same paper she was caught plagiarising.

She eventually graduated with a degree. 

When several lecturers from the original marking panel protested to Zulkifli about this, he declined to meet them and said in a letter that he had not been formally informed of the issue.

When contacted by Malaysiakini, Zulkifli declined to comment on the matter. Attempts to contact UPNM and the police for comment were unsuccessful.

Student copied sentence from BBC article

One of the lecturers who sat on the original marking panel told Malaysiakini that the student involved was flagged by originality-checking software Turnitin.

“She scored a 34 percent on Turnitin,” the lecturer said, adding that students are flagged for plagiarism if their work surpasses a 20 percent score on the software.

The UPNM lecturer, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals at work, pointed out that the student had lifted a sentence in its entirety from a BBC article into her final paper without citing the source.

It was this same lecturer who had lodged a police report over the issue.

In UPNM’s Guide to Thesis Writing, sighted by Malaysiakini, plagiarism is regarded as a “serious academic offence”.

“All work, information or data that is derived from the work of persons other than the student must be acknowledged appropriately in the thesis.

“Any student plagiarising the work of others will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action by the university,” the guide reads.

This plagiarism case has also resulted in a defamation suit, filed by the said lecturer against another member of the academic staff over an argument they had when discussing the manner the university administration had handled the matter.

The suit is ongoing at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

Met with Maszlee

Following Pakatan Harapan’s win in the 14th general election, the lecturer had written a letter to the Education Ministry and later met with its minister, Maszlee Malik, to call for an investigation into both the plagiarism and sexual harassment cases.

The letter, which Malaysiakini has sighted, was also signed by former UPNM lecturers Ahmad Ghazali Abu Hassan, Ajaya Kumar and Mohamad Ghani Mohamad Madersah.

“Through this letter, we ask that the ministry thoroughly investigates these cases. We are prepared to cooperate to supply any proof and information needed for the investigation,” the letter states.

The ministry has since set up an 'Academic Integrity Committee' in response to the sexual harassment case but Malaysiakini has not been able to obtain a response to this plagiarism case at the time of publication.