Azmi Bujang
KUCHING: Yayasan Sarawak is encouraging students to do their higher education at Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus (Swinburne Sarawak) and Curtin University, Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak).
Yayasan Sarawak director Azmi Bujang pointed out that the rates in Swinburne Sarawak and Curtin Sarawak were the cheapest among the private institutions of higher learning in Malaysia.
“If they are willing to do that, we have got the understanding and consensus from these two universities that they will give rebates to all the foundation organisations willing to send students there,” he said.
“Looking at the fees structure, for every one student sent overseas, you can send four students to Sarawak. So that is very good opportunity for Malaysian students to study at an internationally recognised university but at local fees,” he added.
Azmi highlighted this at the dinner gathering of Yayasan Sarawak and Pemuafaatan Badan Ilmiah Nasional (Pembina) with the Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg at Yayasan Sarawak in Petra Jaya here recently.
The event organised in conjunction with the 27th Yayasan Leadership Cooperation Ceremony (MKKY) was participated by sponsors and various foundation organisations.
Yayasan Sarawak, he elaborated, has taken a step forward to convince sponsors and foundation organisations to pick Kuching and Sarawak as the destination of choice for further studies.
“Students can enjoy four years in Kuching, the city of unity, and Sarawak at one quarter of the school fees you pay to study in Australia,” he said while urging the participating foundation organisations to consider sending their students to Curtin and Swinburne.
Azmi proudly introduced Yayasan Sarawak’s fully integrated business system which manages the scholarships and education loans that are tied with the financial systems.
“With the system, we can avoid double data entry or post and retrieve the data and all that unnecessary work. We have developed the system here,” he said.
“We are offering this system to other foundation organisations because there’s no point to develop another new system when adopting this one which has the same functions but you can choose whichever module you want,” he added while encouraging further collaborations.
In addition, he emphasised that students can access and apply (for scholarships or education loan) from any corner of the world as long as there is internet connectivity.
“We also offer this to other foundation organisations as per whatever requirement you have,” he said.
On another development, Azmi revealed that Yayasan Sarawak was at the final stage of preparation to launch a mobile application for the convenience of the foundation’s students.
“Once we have tested this app for three months and it is stable, we hope to launch this by the end of the year which we hope to market as well in the future,” he said in sharing the three products with the delegation from Pembina and various foundation organisations.
The delegation arrived here on Monday where they spent a leisure day networking through golfing and visited Swinburne Sarawak before attending a meeting.
Chief Minister’s wife Datin Patinggi Dato Juma’ani Tuanku Bujang, Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Micheal Manyin Jawong, Assistant Minister of Education and Technological Research Dr Annuar Rapaee and Pembina board of directors member Senator Tan Sri Dr Ibrahim Shah Abu Shah were among those present.