By Nurul Saadah
PAGOH, 27 May 2022: The Deputy President III contesting candidates in the upcoming IIUM Student Union (IIUMSU) Election aimed for a similar ultimate goal of improving the welfare of the students in every aspect.
There were two candidates, Nurul Hamizatul Ain and Ahmad Nur Faris running for the seat and both of them are from Kulliyyah of Languages and Management (KLM). The debate session is a platform to defend their manifestos critically and show their credibility to all voters.
The winner of the seat will later represent the IIUM Pagoh community to serve the student union.
At the beginning of the debate session, Faris shared his concern about the recurring problem related to food and transportation, safety as well as students’ mental and physical well-being. For example, the absence of a cafe in the kulliyyah and less number of buses in Pagoh. Therefore, his utmost priority is to improve on the welfare to ensure an ideal university life for the students.
Similarly, one of Ain’s manifestos is to enhance the quality of services, ranging from student living, support services, transportation, entertainment, a safe campus environment and healthy foods and drinks.
“Lack of food, transportation and a little bit of entertainment is a problem especially here in Pagoh compared to how it is in the Gombak campus. In regard to entertainment, there are many students with different talents and skills, so I want to expose each one of them through an adequate number of good mediums for them,” she highlighted.
To tackle the issues, Faris presented the idea of lowering the rent of the cafe to attract the outside vendors to open the business inside the Pagoh campus, specifically within the kulliyyah area. If it is time for semester break, the vendors do not need to pay the rent as most students would not be on the campus.
Hence, it is a win-win situation for both parties as students could easily get their food and vendors do not have to worry about the high rental costs.
On the other hand, to meet the needs of students to have more transportation, Ain planned to discuss the issue with the management, especially the transportation unit by asking them to provide more buses with an efficient schedule on the Pagoh campus.
Aside from improving student welfare with better services, the candidates also emphasised the need to serve a better environment for the students by promoting the Pagoh campus to the world.
Faris shared the experience of people asking “Oh, is there IIUM in Pagoh?” which makes IIUM Pagoh to be seen as unknown. Particularly when the question came from students of other campuses. This indicated how serious efforts need to be made for the campus to be recognised.
Hence, he promised to discuss with the Central President to conduct activities, preferably physical ones, with three campuses of Gombak, Kuantan and Pagoh. He suggested that it should be done at least once a month to develop a good fellowship between students from different campuses.
Meanwhile, Ain proposed to provide more platforms for students to showcase their talent and achievement to other campuses and the world. To support this move, she intended to bring the Global Ummatic Festival to Pagoh, allowing students in IIUM Pagoh to perform and making this campus become the centre and thus, more well-known.
The manifesto debate was held at Cafe Mahallah Zaid Harithah and broadcast live on IIUMSU Pagoh’s Instagram on Wednesday (25 May).
Readers may view the full debate here. For more information on the IIUMSU Election 2022, readers may refer to IIUMSU Election Commission.***