KUALA LUMPUR: Universities should extend their wings beyond the national boundaries by promoting and contributing to regional and international development, said the Higher Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.
He said by extending itself through collaboration, consultation, and sharing of resources, benefits would accrue to the country in the long run through the fostering of knowledge networks.
Mohamed Khaled added that collaboration efforts and smart partnerships between industries and universities were also pivotal to the success of national development.
“As innovation hubs, universities working with industry will help in many ways, one of which is in finding ways of contributing to the issue of a sustainable environment.
“While we value industries’ involvement and assistance to academia in programme curriculum and the like, the time has come for the collaboration to cover a broader area in the form of community and the environment,” he said in his keynote address at the 15th Malaysian Education Summit 2011 here yesterday.
The speech, titled ‘Higher Education in the New Economy – A Roadmap of Prospect and Challenges’, was read by the Director-General Of the Department of Higher Education, Prof Dr Rujhan Mustafa.
Mohamed Khaled said in his speech that in line with the focus called for in the 10th Malaysia Plan of producing highly skilled workers who will contribute to the nation’s growth, the ministry was taking aggressive efforts to increase the number of people in this group.
“The 3.3 million jobs which will be created in the country by 2020 will be made up of 60 per cent highly skilled workers, out of whom 679,977 will have at least a diploma.
“Equally important are skilled workers with certificates, some of whom will continue to undertake diploma programmes. The approach that we have decided to take is to mainstream technical and vocational education,” he said.
He noted that entrepreneurship was another focus of the ministry in this era of the new economy.
“We are also in the midst of mainstreaming entrepreneurship education. The main objective of this initiative is to enhance the entrepreneurship capacity and ability in all our students,” he said.
Mohamed Khaled said the ministry aimed to enrol 150,000 international students in Malaysia by 2015 and 200,000 by 2020.
The current figure stands at about 86,000 students.
He added that the ministry would continuously monitor the quality of students accepted into the country, as well as put in place various mechanisms to ensure that they were of a quality to meet the requirements for the programme of studies.
“While the enthusiasm for getting more international students enrolled in the country’s higher education institutions is high amongst the institutions, with a financial in-flow figure of about RM30,000 per student spending per year, the task of ensuring that the students are of high, acceptable quality is indeed a challenging one.
“We also wish to increase the number of international faculty in the country who will help in the actual learning and teaching process through the contribution and sharing of pedagogical expertise and through the sharing of their research expertise,” he added. — Bernama