RECITING PLEDGE: The students reciting the pledge at Dewan Tun Abdul Razak Putra in Unimas.
KUCHING: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) will undertake an aggressive promotional drive starting next month to meet their target of recruiting 300 foreign students.
Currently, with around 160 foreign students in its Kota Samarahan campus, Unimas vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Khairuddin Abdul Hamid said that the university would set its sight on the less popular countries to avoid competing with other institutes of higher learning.
“After conducting a research, we found out that other varsities are keen to enrol students from popular Middle East countries,” said Dr Khairuddin after the students’ pledge session at Dewan Tun Abdul Razak Putra yesterday.
As such, Unimas will start their promotional drive especially to Kalimantan, Indonesia and other countries such as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
“At the moment, we are setting our sights on Turkey and selected parts of China for the student intakes,” added Khairuddin.
He also said that Unimas had about 20 students from Turkey, whom he believed were more adaptive to the Malaysian culture.
Regarding the 2011/ 2012 intake, Khairuddin said that a total of 39 foreign students from 14 countries enrolled themselves for economic, business, engineering and computer science courses which are among the favourites.
He also said that these students are mostly from Turkey, Somalia, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brunei, South Korea and the Philippines.
The number, he said, is the biggest so far as compared to last year’s intake of only five to six foreign students.
“Compared to other universities, 300 is a small number, but it is the best that Unimas can offer in our capacity. There is no point to have a huge intake of foreign students if we cannot cater to them,” he added.
He also mentioned that this year, Unimas has enrolled 3436 students which is among the biggest intakes in Malaysia.
Khairuddin also took note of the number of girls which accounted to 70 per cent of the total intake, which he said was not a worry but a global trend. He also said the university should adapt to the huge influx of female students and try to make their facilities better to cater to their needs.
Meanwhile, Norain Fatihah Yusoff, 21, from Pasir Panjang, Terengganu who is visually challenged since birth is looking forward to pursue her social studies course in Unimas.
The youngest from 11 siblings, Norain is rather blessed to get financial support from her other siblings to pursue her tertiary education while waiting for her scholarship to be approved.
“My father has died and my mother who works as a ‘songket’ seamstress has already quit her job,” said Norain, who takes studying at Unimas as a personal challenge as she is studying far away from home.
Coming from Sekolah Pendidikan Khas in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, Norain also said that she was happy that the facilities on campus were adequate and the support from her housemates were astounding.