I refer to the report on academic dishonesty as published by FMT on June 22, 2019.

Forced or unethical co-authorship is only one of the unethical practices in Malaysia’s public universities.

Another common unethical practice is the unauthorised requests from some senior academic staff to their juniors to handle their lectures and tutorials in their absence.

As many senior academic staff in local public universities hold important positions, they have to attend many meetings and as such miss their lectures.

But instead of having replacement classes or e-learning, some request their junior colleagues to handle the lectures on their behalf, even though the course has nothing to do with their areas of expertise.

It is not easy for junior academic staff to decline such requests because the senior academic staff are very influential.

The practice brings negative implications on the workload and KPI of the junior academic staff.

They also spend time producing works to be pitched to good academic publishers, as well as articles to be published in good journals.

The junior academic staff are exploited by senior academic staff, and this makes it difficult for them to achieve their KPI.

The Ministry of Education and the universities should investigate these unethical practices. Spot checks should be conducted from time to time to ensure that lectures and tutorials are handled by the academic staff in charge of the courses.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.