KUCHING: In view of the current worrying Covid-19 pandemic situation worldwide, local youth should consider studying at Malaysian higher education institutions.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) vice-chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Mohamad Kadim Suaidi, who made the suggestion, said, “As parents, we tend to worry about the safety of our children when they study abroad.
“Parents will be more at ease if their children study locally as they can still take care of them during this difficult period.
“Besides, the students are not missing out in quality education and knowledge. They will get these when they study locally.”
Mohamad Kadim said that students should also think about the cost and convenience when deciding where they wanted to study.
“As most local universities nowadays have international linkages and partnerships with international universities that offer twinning programmes and student exchange programmes for their students, local students will still have the opportunity to experience studying abroad even for a short period of time.
“The experiences that they get from these will broaden their horizons and make their learning experiences more meaningful.
“Additionally, the quality of teaching by the local university lecturers is at par with overseas lecturers as most of them have been trained or received their higher education abroad.”
Mohamad Kadim added that local universities were continuously working to upgrade their standards to be on par with international universities.
“In order to get this recognition, international linkages with other universities are important. Through the memorandum of understanding (MOUs) and memorandum of agreement (MOAs), local universities can collaborate in academic, research and publication activities with their international partners,” he said.
He said that most local universities were now moving towards global classrooms where local students could participate in online classrooms with their peers and lecturers from international universities.
“Students gain international exposure through these activities and receive meaningful learning experiences as well.
“It is a common practice nowadays to engage in research collaborations with international researchers, where experts from local universities share their knowledge and expertise working on a research project together.
“The knowledge is then shared with the rest of the world when they publish high quality journal articles with high impact factors,” he clarified.
Mohamad Kadim said the engagement with industry players had also contributed to the continuous improvement in the quality of programmes offered by universities.
“Inputs from industry players who have been appointed as Faculty chief executive officers (CEOs) or those who sit in the Board of Study have enabled universities to make changes and improvements to the content of programmes to meet the market demand.
“At the same time, the engagement with industry players ensures that the graduates produced by universities are of good quality and marketable.
“All these exercises will definitely contribute to the quality and standard of local universities,” he said.
Hence, local universities were at par with international universities when it came to the quality of education that they offered to students, said Mohamad Kadim.
He added all the universities in Malaysia (public and private) were required to adhere to the high-quality standard set by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) when it came to programmes offered as well as providing sufficient facilities such as laboratories and state of the art libraries to be used for the teaching and learning processes.
“Malaysian universities have proved their quality of education to be at par with international universities. For example, Universiti Malaya is ranked at no. 65 of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Top University Ranking.
“In April this year, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) improved its ranking in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2021 overall top 100 list by making it to the 39th place and sharing the rank with the University of Montreal, Canada,” he said.
He added that Unimas had positioned itself as a leading global university for a sustainable future.
“Unimas has been accorded by Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings as among the 11 top universities in Malaysia.”
Mohamad Kadim said that last year alone, Malaysia welcomed around 100,000 international students to its local universities.
There were14,000 international students from China, 10,000 from Indonesia, 7,000 from Bangladesh, and 69,000 from other countries around the world.
“Based on the QS World University Ranking 2021, a total of 20 local universities are ranked among the top 1,000 universities in the world and among the 20 universities, five are among the top 200 in the world.
“In fact, in Unimas, we score 90 percent in our overall International Student Satisfaction Survey 2020, and we are the finalist for Times Higher Education Award Asia 2019 in the Outstanding Support for Students Category along with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Kirkuk, Iraq, NUS Business School, Singapore, Ozyegin University, Turkey and other shortlisted foreign universities,” he revealed.
