Addu City, Maldives – The Asian Academy of Aeronautics (AAA) has decided to suspend the implementation of the decision to terminate four students studying for their aircraft licenses at the Academy.
While the initial decision to suspend the students was communicated to the students via email, claiming performance and commitment issues which resulted in the performance of the progress not being inline with the requirement of the Academy, the revised decision was forwarded to the students by the Chairperson of the Academy, Aliakber Jeevunjee, as per the Students Union of AAA.
Although Academy claims poor performance of the students, the Union has noted that all four students were showing good performance and that it is more likely that the initial termination decision was made based on the fact that all four students were among the 86 students who initially took a stand against the university.
The Union highlighted that this is the first time students have taken a stand against the Academy together, in such a scale and the individual students who complained or filed the issues of the Academy to other authorities have been met with repercussions such as intimidation and even expulsion.
The Academy’s decision to terminate the five students on Friday also conveniently fell right after the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) decided to take action against the Academy for failing to comply with the requirements highlighted in an audit conducted by the Maldives Civial Aviation Authority (MCAA) on April of 2019, even by October of 2019.
The actions included requiring the academy to formulate individual study plans for all local students studying at the Academy, which is to be approved prior to being implemented, among others. Hence, the decision to terminate the students was in clear violation of the notice of MOHE as well.
The Union describes the actions of the Academy as deliberate attempts to intimidate the students and have highlighted that if the Maldivian authorities fail to take action against the Academy and remedy the issues faced by the students, more local students would end up meeting the same fate at the hands of the Academy.
