UMK quarantines students from Sabah, COVID-19 red zones

UMK Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Noor Azizi Ismail said the university concurred with the announcement of the Higher Education Ministry (KPT) which had suggested that all Institutions of Higher Learning (IPT) should conduct registration, learning and teaching online.

He said, other than taking the initiatives to conduct registration via online and drive through, UMK also provided accommodation for students who had arrived earlier especially from Sabah and Sarawak with financial problems, and several other factors, rendering them unable to return home.

‘’We see KPT has taken the apt decisions to curb the spread of COVID-19 following a drastic hike in the last week. On our part, UMK students can either return home after registering or put up at the residential colleges by complying with the standard operating procedure (SOP).

‘’Those from Sabah and COVID-19 red zone areas will be quarantined for two weeks at a special residential college building at the university after undergoing swab tests by the Ministry of Health (KKM),’’ he told a media conference on the entry of new students at the UMK City Campus, Pengkalan Chepa here, yesterday.

Noor Azizi said UMK was always prepared to implement the online learning system, in line with the suggestion of the KPT, which had become a new normal to them to ensure the security and health of students were assured.

‘’UMK is already fully prepared to carry out online learning since it has been done since 2015 until to date, especially more so that we already had the experience since the first phase of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in March, and it had been implemented well.

‘’In terms of eCampus too, we have migrated to the eCampus UMK 2.0 platform which has a capacity to accommodate its use by up to 10,000 students at any one time. They will also obtain guidance from the eLearning Task Force including learning modules which will not affect the learning and teaching qualities,’’ he said.

For the 2020/2021 session, he said UMK had recorded that 3,192 students had accepted the offer to study at UMK from 3,780 students offered, and of the total, 150 students were from Sabah.

‘’Until this afternoon, of the total, 65 per cent had registered online and only two per cent had registered physically. This showed that parents and students had accepted the suggestion of KPT well to register online,’’ he said.