Assalamualikum and salam sejahtera to everyone.To Malaysian students in Wellington, please read the articles below. Hope we can understand how important we have to register with Education Malaysia (formerly known as Malaysian Student Department).
BY KAREN CHAPMAN, RICHARD LIM and KANG SOON CHEN
educate@thestar.com.my
MALAYSIAN students studying overseas are not compelled to register with our agencies, but doing so would enable the government to make contingency plans in case of emergencies.
ENGINEERING student Muhammad Rosli from New Zealand’s Canterbury University was at his flat when the 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch, last month
“It was lunchtime and I was having a meal when in a flash everything went topsy-turvy. I dashed out thinking I was going to die, but once I reached out of the building, my instincts told me that this was a massive quake and I should inform the Malaysian Students Association to tell them I was alive and well.
“I knew the phone lines would soon be disrupted and quickly called Education Malaysia (EM) New Zealand director Dr Rosli Mohammed in Wellington, just to let him know about the quake and that I was okay. Then I made brief phone calls to all my close friends to see if they were fine,” he says.
We are with you: students in Ahmedabad, India, hold candles as they pray for Japan’s earthquake victims. - Reuters Muhammad is perhaps one of the few Malaysian students in the country registered with EM, (formerly known as Malaysian Students’ Department (MSD)). It is a representative organisation for students in nations where there is a large Malaysian student cohort.
In fact many students not only in New Zeland but in countries like Egypt, Japan and Australia, have not registered with EM or with the Malaysian missions abroad.
Their failure to do so will only make it difficult for the Malaysian government to trace them and make emergency arrangements when a major calamity befalls a nation that they are in.
Presently, students studying overseas are encouraged to register with the Malaysian embassies, high commissions, consulates or EM centres, but they are not compelled to do so.
Muhammad Muammar (right) handing over a Care4Christchurch donation for Malaysian students affected by the recent earthquake to Malaysian High Commission First Secretary Nur Ayuni Zainal Abidin (left) while Dr Rosli (second from left) and VUW Malaysian Students Council deputy president Sharil Azrin Damari look on. Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin has urged students overseas to register with any of these Malaysian authorities as it would make it easier to locate them should there be a natural disaster or unrest in the country.
The ministry, he adds, only has a database of government-sponsored students.
He says that the ministry has set up a website for students to register themselves but many have not done so.
In cases of emergency or natural disasters, EM Dr Rosli who is based in the New Zealand capital of Wellington, says staff will communicate with students who have registered with it via e-mail, Facebook or other social media, telephone or through the short messaging system (SMS).
In solidarity: South Korean college students in Seoul take part in a fund-raising campaign for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. - AP “We do receive support from the International Office of universities to advise all Malaysian students to register with us but at the same time, it is hard for the institutions themselves to provide us with their names due to the country’s Privacy Act.
“We advise and appeal to parents to convince their children to register in case of disaster or emergencies,” he explains.
EM Australia Sydney education attaché Ahmad Sabri Mohamad concurs, voicing his frustration on the lack of awareness among Malaysian students about the importance of registering with these agencies.
“As a result, many students studying overseas are unaccounted for, and it is an uphill task to trace them when we need to check on their status when anything happens ,” he says.
Citing the floods in Queensland last December as an example, Ahmad Sabri says Malaysian students only came forward to register after disaster struck.
He adds that EM Australia has for several years allowed students to register online. Dr Rosli says the EM centre had worked on a standard operating procedure (SOP) for dealing with emergencies following the earthquake which struck Christchurch with a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale last September.
“There is a need for us to be proactive and have the SOP as the country faces the risk of earthquakes and we want students to understand what they need to do in case of a crisis,” he adds.
In fact, Dr Rosli explains item six on the last page of the (Malaysian) passport states that Malaysian citizens residing abroad must register their name and latest address at the Malaysian Embassy, High Commission or Consulate office.
Higher Education Ministry director-general Prof Dr Rujhan Mustafa says that most Malaysians fail to adhere to the requirement although it is the responsibility of each Malaysian citizen to do so.
Although students may view registration as a hassle – or an invasion of privacy, at worst – they must be aware that others bear the brunt of the stress in pressing times.
And often, it is their parents who are at their wits’ end.
Prof Rujhan himself was on the receiving end of many an angry phone call prior to Ops Piramid.
“In tense moments, parents may sometimes get emotional and vent their frustrations,” he says.
“I heard them out and asked them to SMS the necessary details – their child’s name; varsity; year; programme and phone number – as soon as they hung up.
“We then established contact with the respective students.”
Saving lives
Although students are encouraged to register with the relevant agencies, many might not realise the importance or the need to do so.
Second-year communications student at RMIT University, Australia, Wong Chee Mun is perplexed the government does not provide students with a “how-to” guide to register at its mission, after its hype about encouraging students to do so.
“I tried to register with the High Commission but gave up because of the long distance between my university in Melbourne and its office in Canberra,” says the 20-year-old who eventually registered with the EM website.
Prof Rujhan says self-funded students generally do not usually register as opposed to government-sponsored students. And this complicates matters in moments of crises like the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
“Less than 50% of our students were registered with the embassy,” he says.
“The Malaysian Students’ Association in Japan recently said that only 300 of the 2,465 Malaysian students there were traced and this shows that people need to take registration more seriously.
“They should also make an effort to alert the Malaysian embassy and students’ associations – or at least their parents – on their whereabouts, if they’re moving about during the holidays.”
An even bigger quagmire occurred in Egypt during former president Hosni Mubarak’s final days as only over 1,000 Malaysian students were registered from a total of 11,319!
Prof Rujhan feels that although Ops Piramid – the rescue exercise which airlifted 8,341 Malaysians, mostly students – was a success, the lack of contact information could have hampered the evacuation effort.
“The MSD in Egypt only had five staff looking after about 11,000 students and they were really working against the odds,” he adds.
The director-general says that even after all that happened – including the formation of a call centre to collect student information – only over 7,000 students had done so.
Responding to grouses from students who had faced difficulty in registering, Prof Rujhan says the ministry will check and act on any complaints.
“If it’s really happening on the ground, we will improve things.
“I would like to advise all private or self-funded students overseas to register with our EM centres or MSDs and if you’re discouraged from doing so, report the officers who said it was unnecessary and we will act on the complaints,” he explains.
Pointing out that parents often had vital information, Prof Rujhan suggests that parents register on behalf of their children.
In this case, they could rest assured that the relevant authorities would be in touch with their children in times of crises.
“It makes sense as parents are often more worried than their children when things go wrong,” he says.
The director-general’s views are shared by the ministry’s director of education promotions, Dr Syed Alwee Shekh Alsagoff, who is responsible for managing all EM centres and MSDs.
Emphasising that parents often had relevant information on their children’s whereabouts, Dr Syed Alwee says they (parents) can serve as an additional “layer of safety”.
Doing their part
Thanks to the close rapport between our embassy’s Student Affairs Department and the Malaysian student associations in Russia, the registration process of Malaysian students runs smoothly most of the time.
“Malaysian students’ associations are set up in all Russian universities which have a sizeable Malaysian student population,” says Mohd Farhan Mohd Faiz Wilson Yeo, 24, who is the Malaysian Students Association representative from I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University.
Upon their arrival in Russia, he says students are encouraged to join the association, which in turn compiles their data for the embassy.
On the Moscow Metro Kultury Park suicide bomb blasts in March last year, Mohd Farhan says student leaders took the responsibility of checking on the status of other students and relayed the information back to the Student Affairs Department in the embassy.
Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) master’s in public management student Muhammad Muammar Gadaffi Omar says students are regularly reminded to register with the EM.
“We also organise orientation programmes for students and one session is on the need to register with the EM,” says Muhammad Muammar who is also VUW Malaysian Students Council president.
United Kingdom and Eire (Ireland) Council for Malaysian Students (UKEC) chairman Farquar Haqqani Fadhlullah Suhaimi says all Malaysian students are encouraged to register with the EM centre and can also do so online.
“It is not compulsory but it is highly encouraged, and UKEC works to assist EM in getting students to register, primarily through the respective Malaysian Societies and Malaysian Students Association of all the universities around the UK and Eire,” he adds.
Farquar Haqqani who is a second year Economics student at Warwick University, says UKEC publishes Blurb! which is distributed to students at pre-departure briefings, and is a comprehensive overview of life as a student in the UK including information on registering with the EM and how to contact the High Commission.
Although news on political upheavals and natural disasters happening around the world have been making the headlines recently, Sandy Tan who is enrolled in a twinning programme at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, says she does not think that disaster could strike at her doorstep.
She says the Malaysian Embassy had sent out the message to encourage students to register through a survey conducted on Malaysian students in her university recently.
“Students from Malaysia have a strong support network here as we can seek help from a local university staff member, who’s been assigned to look after our needs,” she says.
“The earthquake struck on Feb 22, which was supposed to be the Malaysian Students’ Association’s “club day’ but we had to postpone it earlier due to the rain. After the earthquake, a head count of all Malaysian students was done, and the information was relayed to Dr Rosli,” says association president Poh Eng Eu.
Final year Otago University medical student Marcus Lee was having lunch at the hospital cafeteria when the earthquake struck.
He spent the first day helping out at the gynaecology ward and the emergency department of the local hospital.
After the mayhem, Marcus alerted the Malaysian High Commission of his status through the Facebook group, Christchurch Earthquake: Message for all Malaysian students in Christchurch. To ascertain the whereabouts and safety of the international students, Canterbury University pro-vice-chancellor (student services and international) Dr Nello Angerilli says the university issued directives asking students to fill up a web form it set up, with nearly 1,200 responses.
“As the university did not have the capacity to contact the families of the international students, the students were urged to do so themselves and also to register their presence with their respective missions as they would handle all enquiries,’’ he says, adding that the Canterbury University Earthquake Recovery page on Facebook served as an interactive forum to answer questions from students and post links to important information.
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