More Holidays Please

Hey buddies!

Regarding those one-day breaks like our last Deepavali and the coming Chinese New Year (it was a one-day break when we checked MMU Calendar few months ago) - if you ever wondered how holidays are set for us by the administration, below are some explanations from the person incharge of Academic Programme, Accreditation & Coordination Unit.

By the way, hope you guys enjoy this Chinese New Year! :)

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Dear Valerie,

The decision on the academic calendar 2007/08 was decided in Senate no. 112 held on 7th December 2006 which was chaired by Prof. Chuah on behalf of the President. Prior to that, the same was being discussed in the Curriculum Committee Meeting held on 10^th November 2006 which was chaired by the Vice Presdient (R&D), Prof Chuah. The decision was made after taking various accounts into consideration. When APAC proposed to the members of Senate which comprise of academics of different ethnicity, we provided a few options for them to consider. After a long deliberation, the current calendar was decided upon and it was based on academic reasons.

If you look at the calendar carefully, CNY falls in the week 2 of the trimester 3. This means that after a 3 week long trimester break, you come back for a week and should we give you another week break for the CNY holiday, you will take a break again. Can you imagine the situation of the international students or other students whose hometown is in places only reachable by air will be if such a situation arises ? It will be a dilemma between cutting a week of class and coming back for a week of class and going on a holiday again.

In a year we have 52 weeks. 36 weeks will be taken up for classes, 5 weeks for examination and 9 weeks for end of the trimester breaks. It is also common knowledge that Malaysians enjoy a 2 weeks of public holidays in a year. With that, all the weeks in a year are already taken up. If we are to give a week break for each of the festivals Deepavali, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, we need another 4 more weeks in a year or two more weeks, the least. In reality, we have to work around the actual 52 weeks that we have. The academic calendar actually follows through from the previous year’s. In the 2006/07 calendar, we were lucky that the deepavali and hariraya celebration fell during the trimester break and the CNY fell during the week 4. Thus the Senate agreed to move the mid trimester break earlier. However, for the 2007/08 calendar, CNY is in the second week of the trimester. As for the Hariraya Aidilfitri, it happened to fall on the weekend before the trimester break. We had to ensure that the examination was over before that Saturday. Please also note that the Senate members also took into account that the 2008 CNY falls on a Thursday. The following Friday will also be public holiday and students can further celebrate during the weekend. Should you need to take the Wednesday off, please discuss with your lecturer to come to an amicable solution between you.

I hope you realise that we do not decide when the festive seasons come. We only decide when the classes, the examination and the trimester break should be and we accommodate to the festive seasons that come in between.

Thank you.

Academic Programme, Accreditation & Coordination Unit
Multimedia University
Jalan Multimedia
63100, Cyberjaya
Selangor.

Tel : +603-83125038
Fax : +603-83125142