UNISEL Denies its IT Students the Freedom to Choose Where to do Their Internship

One evening while having dinner outside with a couple of friends, they started discussing a new training scheme that would replace the usual internship program in the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology. The conversation went along the following lines.

Friend 1: Where did you do your training Sam?
Me: I did my internship at some international firm. Have you guys found a company yet?
Friend 2: We all did, but the faculty is forcing us to reject those offers because they have a new training program.
Me: Confused look
Friend 1: The dean came up with a new idea for us to do our training under one company for a month to get ASP.NET certification, and then they will place us in a company they choose after we pass the certification exam.
Friend 2: We also have to pay RM2500 to that company for the certification.
Friend 1: Don’t forget the RM1200 we must still pay for our beloved UNISEL for the Industrial Training course.
Me: So it’s not optional?
Both friends: No! We have no choice but to follow this system.
Me: But this was not included in your syllabus when you registered in UNISEL, so the faculty management are just bluffing to scare you guys into following the new scheme. I’m sure they made some sort of deal with this training company. I’m sure this is just so later the faculty can brag that all its students are certified and quickly get jobs.
Friend 1: The dean said it’s compulsory and our training is in a few weeks so we have no choice but to follow.

For those of you that don’t know what this is about, it’s about the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT) management deciding to forgo the tried and true traditional method of student internships and try something unheard of before: dictate where students do their internship and what they learn there.

Whereas traditionally, a student would seek out numerous companies to undergo their 14-15 week internship and finally settle on a company of their choosing, under the new method, each student will have to register under one company called City Labs and undergo more classes and training for a month, and then pass an ASP.NET certification exam, only after which they will be placed in a company selected by UNISEL or the training provider.

The students have to pay RM2500 for the training at City Labs, which is based in Petaling Jaya. Furthermore, if a student fails the certification exam, they will have to pay RM1000 to sit for a replacement exam. In addition to that, the students also have to fork out another RM1200 for UNISEL’s unjustified ‘Industrial Training’ course fee. I still don’t understand why a student has to pay this fee, seeing as how UNISEL neither transports the students to the company nor provides them with any living accommodations or services throughout the internship period. On top of all that, the students will not get any monthly stipend or salary during the training period.

So in layman’s terms, students do not have the freedom to choose a company or firm to do their internship at. Right after finishing their final semester, they are immediately forced to undergo even more classes and an exam at a single company. They are not given a choice of what area to be trained in; only ASP.NET. Then they are placed in a company of the university or training provider’s choice. And on top of all that, they still have to pay RM3700!

UNISEL management, how can you approve such a proposal? Has UNISEL’s allowed the FCSIT to go from a center of learning to a factory that churns out ASP.NET certified students? I really hope the other faculties don’t get any funny ideas…

Perhaps the Senate moved too quickly when they approved the FCSIT proposal to overhaul the Industrial Training scheme. Such a major overhaul of a crucial component of a degree program syllabus cannot be rushed the way the FCSIT management has. It takes time and patience to weed out all the kinks and fine tune such a program.

There’s a reason we have something called a pilot study or test run when introducing new programs; to see if the new program is feasible for students and the university. The upper management should not have approved the proposal completely, but should have instead allowed the FCSIT management to conduct an optional trial run for the new training scheme and use the outcome and feedback from students to gauge whether the program is feasible and make changes where necessary. No one would have complained about this new training scheme if it was optional and introduced properly. On the contrary, I’m sure many students would be glad to have this new scheme as a backup plan in case they are not able to secure an internship position with a company.

But with the upper management’s complete approval, the FCSIT management chose to dive headfirst into uncharted waters, not consulting the students beforehand and completely ignoring students’ pleas to cancel it or make it optional. They didn’t inform the students only until the last couple of weeks of the semester, long after many students have already secured internship spots in various companies. It was quite troublesome for those students, as they were forced to call the companies and reject their offers, in effect making them look bad and also ruining UNISEL’s image. Now we have students who are worried about how they’ll come up with the RM2500 fee and other students who do not wish to get an ASP.NET certificate because they wish to focus on other areas.

Not in our syllabus

This new scheme is not compatible with the syllabus we were given when we registered as new students. The course fees we agreed to pay at the time of accepting our offer letter do not include this new RM2500 fee, and this negates any argument the faculty management have regarding the new scheme.

Furthermore, when a tiny group of students contacted the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) regarding this matter, they were quite surprised and interested to investigate this new scheme. The MQA assured the students that this new scheme cannot be mandatory and is not compatible with the syllabus in any program in an institution of higher learning. They added that if the university wishes to change the syllabus (in this case, the Industrial Training course), they need to inform the students before they are in their 5th semester, which gives them ample time to prepare for such a change.

But instead of listening to the students’ reasonable arguments and either canceling the new scheme or simply making it optional for those who want it, the faculty management decided on another approach. When one individual from the tiny group of students was very persistent and vocal about the the new training scheme, the dean of the faculty decided to buy off that student by giving only that student the freedom to do their internship wherever they want as long as they completely drop the matter. The student happily took the offer, and the faculty management continued with its new scheme. What does that tell you?

It should be optional, not compulsory

The main issue students have with this new scheme is that the faculty management have made it compulsory, even though the MQA themselves said students cannot be forced to follow the new scheme. I’ve never actually heard of a university that dictates where its students do their internship. The primary goal of a student internship program is for students to gain experience in the business world and meet and interact with professionals in the field they are interested in, not to be forced to work and pay toward a certification they are not interested in.

You can’t just take students who have been studying for the past 2-3 years in classrooms and then dump them in a training center for even more extensive classes followed by a certification exam. Students should be given the opportunity to experience working with professionals in a company of their choosing!

One of the arguments the faculty management has been using to support its case is the number of students who were not able to secure internship placements in time. Yes, for those students, perhaps this training scheme would be a welcome reprieve, but what about the majority of the students who want to seek internships on their own? What about the students who do not wish to pay the crazy training fee of RM2500 along with UNISEL’s still unjustified RM1200? What about the students who do not wish to obtain an ASP.NET certification because they wish to focus on other areas?

Students should have the option on what to learn

While ASP.NET is quite a sophisticated language used by large to medium IT enterprises, it is not a widely used technology as far as the current state of the IT industry is concerned. Many companies do not hire based on what certifications a person has; they place more emphasis on proven experience and whether the person has a wide range of skills. ASP.NET can only be used on Microsoft platforms, and to be frank, most companies are not exactly using Microsoft services for their businesses. The IT world is moving towards an era where everything is open-source, and ASP.NET is nothing of the sort.

It is best if new graduates have different programming skills, and surely many students want to focus on areas other than ASP.NET. Most of my friends want nothing to do with this certification, and if given the chance, would gladly take something else. There are many other certifications out there which this training company also provides, only if UNISEL would give its students the option to choose. There is the Oracle Database Certification for those who love working with databases, and then there is the Java Certification Program. There is the Front End Engineer Certification, Mobile Applications Development Certificate, Software Testing Certification, and even a variety of Networking certifications. Let the student choose what they will learn.

This ambitious new training scheme is nothing but just that; ambitious. For reasons I cannot fathom, the senate has approved this and given the FCSIT the green light to go ahead. The MQA clearly said that the faculty cannot make this new scheme compulsory for students, yet the faculty management is forcing students to undergo this training and pay the exorbitant RM3700 training and course fee. And when confronted by a very vocal student regarding the this scheme, the dean resorted to offer that student the chance to do their internship anywhere they want so long as they keep quiet.

And how is the faculty management still able to continue with this scheme? Because they know that students either don’t know their rights or are too passive or simply too afraid that they’ll get in trouble if they question the management.

I implore UNISEL’s upper management to look into this new training scheme and either cancel it or make it optional for those that still want it. It’s good to be a pioneer in something, and perhaps this would have been a good program if approached the right way with lots of patience and foresight, but at this moment, it looks like UNISEL is forcing a controversial, untried, and unwanted training scheme down the students’ throats. And for what? Just to have bragging rights that at the end of the day, UNISEL graduates have some sort of professional certificate?

The FCSIT should be a department that gives the world talented and skilled IT graduates, and not a factory that churns out students with an ASP.NET certificate. Otherwise, a befitting name and slogan would be: Factory of Computer Science and Information Technology, where we turn your sons and daughters into ASP.NET certificate holders…after they pay an additional RM2500.