News and pictures by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arpah Abu Bakar
MALAYSIAN STUDENTS TO PROMOTE MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITIES TO AUSTRALIANS
UUM ONLINE: As an effort to promote Malaysian universities as the destination for students mobility programmes, Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS) in collaboration with Education Malaysia Australia (EMA) have jointly initiated a programme to empower Malaysian students in Australia as Malaysia’s Junior Ambassador.
The launching ceremony was graciously officiated by High Commissioner of Malaysia to Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency Dato’ Roslan Abdul Rahman.
In his speech, Dato’ Roslan signified some of the reasons students from Australia should study in Malaysia, among them are low tuition fees and low living expenses thus higher education is highly affordable. In fact, Kuala Lumpur is consistently highly ranked in the QS Top Universities as ‘Most Affordable Cities for Students’. Moreover, English is the second language, so there is minimal barrier to communication and the diversity in culture that ‘Malaysia is truly Asia’.
The Chairman of Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS), Datin Maizatul Akmam Alawi, Prof. Dr. Haim Hilman Abdullah, Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arpah Abu Bakar, Director of Center of International Affairs and Cooperation (CIAC) UUM were also attending the event.
In this event, two alumni from the New Colombo Plan (NCP) mobility programme shared their experience studying in Malaysia. Sonia Parulekar, who did a mobility programme in Universiti Malaya said that she had great fun with her Malaysian friends enjoying late night ‘teh tarik’ and she definitely will visit Malaysia again in the future. Other than Malaysian students and NCP alumni, there were also representatives from universities in Australia such as Assoc. Prof. Erwih Oh, the Director (International), Griffith University, Griffith Sciences, Australia. Prof. Oh has indicated an interest to have a collabporation with UUM.
The New Colombo Plan (NCP) mobility programme is a fund offered by the Australian government for Australian students to study overseas. The NCP mobility programme funds about 10,000 students every year to 40 countries including Malaysia. Currently, Malaysia is ranked at 7th in the destination choice for mobility programmes by Australian students.