About this event

The Malaysian Consumer Protection Act 1999 (CPA) has radically altered the student-institution relationship in higher education. Debates about the position of students in higher education have not paid enough attention to the far-reaching implications of the CPA. Yet, significant changes have been made relating to institution and teacher liability to students.

This three-hour seminar provides insights into how consumer protection principles have altered the obligations of HE institutions and enhanced the rights of students registered in higher education institutions. The webinar will also show how the Consumer Tribunal provides a simpler and cheaper means to settle disputes arising from the student-institution relationship.

The webinar will cover:-

• The nature and purpose of consumer protection laws;
• Student interests under the laws on higher education.
• How consumer laws extend student interests in higher education.
• The provisions of the Consumer Protection Act 1999 that have an impact on higher education.

At the end of the seminar, participants will:-

• Be able to describe the legal status of students under higher education laws.
• Be able to identify provisions in the CPA that affect institutions.
• Be able to identify specific provisions of the CPA that affect student rights.
• Be able to file a complaint at the Consumers’ Tribunal established by the CPA.

The speaker

Mr U K Menon is a lawyer-educator with four decades in education. He specializes in law and policies on education. He was appointed to several ministerial committees on higher education.

Mr Menon was at various times, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Wawasan Open University, Director of Studies and CEO Stamford College, Malaysia, Associate Director, Asia Law Centre (University of Melbourne) and architect and coordinator of the law program at the Mara Institute of Technology, Malaysia. He taught Corporate Law and Professional Legal Practice in Malaysia, Australia, and the United States. In 1995, the University of Melbourne appointed him Hon Visiting Scholar for his work at the Asian Law Centre. In 2017, he designed and taught a capacity building programme for academics and higher education administrators in Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tanzania. In recent years he has advised and made presentations to different audiences on the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, particularly about its application in the education sector. To keep up with the digital times we live in, he developed and taught privacy and personal data protection laws and principles to audiences in Malaysia. Very recently, together with his colleagues from Espact, he has started a research project on corruption in higher education. Mr Menon also co-founded the Data Science Association whose objectives are to introduce data science in Malaysia.