Recently the nation was rocked by allegations of academic dishonesty. There were some reports in the media such as one at FMT (Publish or perish, or just steal it).
While we agree that there is a need for check and balance to ensure academic integrity, we have to view these allegations in the right perspective. Any allegation of impropriety must be fair, balanced and supported by facts and not coffee-shop level allegations devoid of any supporting facts and figures. The vague reference to an incident involving an academic using his/her student’s work was used to justify a view that academic impropriety in Malaysia has reached pandemic proportions.
To a lay person reading through these reports, several perceptions could possibly be evoked in his mind. Firstly that these must be true because the ones making the claims are in the domain themselves. Secondly, this is a particular endemic problem existing only in Malaysia and not elsewhere. Thirdly is that Malaysian academic institutions and management condone this sort of practice in the race for rankings or that there is a lack of a system to check this practice. Fourthly, this issue now hurts the international reputation of Malaysian institutions and academicians.
These are indeed serious allegations and if true, something should be done about this and pronto.
We are not denying the possibility that academic ethical malpractices exist. What we oppose is the manner of its exposition and its damning implications for all those who teach and conduct research in Malaysian universities. As if we are all involved in these nefarious activities.
A few simple questions can be posed. How many academics or institutions are involved? Does data exist to show these phenomena are institutionalised in our universities as alleged? Can one or two accounts of anecdotal evidence be used to conclude that the issue is widespread and institutionalised? Note that it is estimated that there are more than 70,000 academic staff in the country.
We feel duty bound to clarify.
It is true that the culture of publish or perish so prevalent in the academic world, spawned by the need to protect tenureship and promote university rankings, has led to some issues of unethical practices.
However, this is a world-wide phenomenon, the subject of many studies and publications and involve more than just putting students names last.
Yasser Gaber (2011) in his article entitled Unethical Practices in Scientific Research-Authorship gives several types of unethical practices in authorship. They are gift authorship, prestige authorship, ghost authorship, honorary authorship.
He also mentioned the injustice perpetrated upon helpless students by supervisors who put their names first, co-supervisors second and the students last, an issue which created the recent furore.
In other words, the problem of unethical practice in authorship is long existing and a commonly occurrence even in more developed and advanced countries.
An even more serious example of academic dishonesty is the falsification or fabrication of results and publication of them as if these are genuine.
In 2005, over 200 South Korean university professors from 50 universities were to stand trial over charges that they published books that were plagiarised from other textbooks.
Who can forget the scandal in 2006 involving Hwang Woo Suk a world-famous professor of biotechnology in stem cell research at the prestigious Seoul National University who was sacked and sentenced to 2 years suspended sentence for faking his research results.
Should we pass judgement that cheating and plagiarism is prevalent in Korean universities because of these two major events? Definitely unfair. We need more facts to form judgement.
In 2006, three top scientists from Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore conducting prestigious research under the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research were sacked for falsifying research results. It caused a major rumpus. A PhD student even had his doctorate revoked by the university. The aftermath also led to the universities retracting several articles published in top journals.
Should we pass judgement that cheating and falsifying research results are rampant and widespread in those universities ? Of course not.
In 2016, a white paper on academic dishonesty amongst Chinese students in US universities accounted for 33% of all dismissal cases. In 2015 the figure was 25 % and before that it was 21 %.
Black sheep exist everywhere even in the top echelons of universities and they will continue to exist despite the checks and balances put in place to prevent them. No man-made system is fool-proof enough to prevent academic unethical practices. It starts from the inside, from fear of god and intrinsic moral values
The majority of honest law-abiding Malaysian academics follow these guidelines which is why our academic institutions are the envy of, and role models for, developing countries.
Malaysian universities have reached world class status through a concerted effort involving academia, university administrations, Ministry of Education and sound government policies.
With limited financial resources, we managed to outperform much more financially able international competitors. We box above our weight. Although ranking is not everything, it is also one form of indicator of progress. Of this we as a country should be proud.
Why then are the alleged actions of a few Malaysian academics being held up as typifying the majority of god fearing, law abiding academics? The mind boggles at the simplistic, moronic attempt to tar all Malaysian academics with the same brush.
Yes there needs to be a serious debate and discussion of the extent and impact of these malpractices. We must not for a single moment let our guard down and trivialise the issue.
Yet equally undesirable is any attempt to create mass hysteria by claiming the situation is out of control by claiming almost everybody condones the practice without providing any shred of evidence to support these wild claims.
It is an insult to the rest of us who have spent their whole life teaching, supervising, researching and writing, building up the academic institutions they have served loyally and ethically.
The general public deserves to know the truth and this is our responsibility to provide them with the facts without fear or favour. Plain facts without any extra garnishing or topping. To do otherwise is to do a great disservice to them, the academic profession and to the country.
Omar Yaakob is the chairman of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s Council of Professors and Awaludin Mohamed Shaharoun is a member of Persatuan Akademia IKRAM.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
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