Students’ online application for public varsity tampered with

GOPENG: Three university hopefuls were shocked to find their online applications to public universities tampered with.

The former SMK Seri Teja students, who had just received their STPM results on Thursday, had all their eight choices filled with Islamic Studies.

To make matters worse, they were unable to amend the changes.
Stunned: Chow (seated) showing the changes made to his online application as (from left) Chai and Ang look on.

Chow Hon Mun, 21, said they could only make changes to the details on the online application website three times.

“I panicked when I could not make any changes and told my teachers about it,” said Chow when met at the Gopeng MCA service centre yesterday.

“My teachers then advised me to lodge a police report,” he said, adding that his first choice was engineering and that he had no intention of taking up Islamic Studies.

Chow added that recently he and his two friends had also received SMSes from an unidentified person who admitted to making the changes to their applications.

“I initially thought it was a prank but soon realised the person was telling the truth,” he said, adding that he was puzzled that the person had managed to procure confidential information about him and his two friends.

The other two victims were Chai Yick Loong, 21, and Ang Chun Heng, 20.

Chai said he wanted to take up an engineering course, and hoped the Higher Education Ministry could help them with their predicament.

Ang said he wanted to change the list back to his primary choices before the public university acceptance application ends on March 23.

“I hope the relevant authorities will upgrade the security system on the website so that it won’t be so easily hacked by people,” he added.

Gopeng MCA division chief Albert Chang said he would refer the matter to Deputy Higher Education Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung.

“We will help them gather all their result slips, application forms and official school letters and send the documents to Dr Hou through our education bureau,” said Chang.

He urged all public university hopefuls to check their online applications to ensure their forms were not tampered with.