Malaysian varsity seeks more students from Brunei
Monday, January 13, 2014
THE Terengganu campus of Malaysian varsity UCSI University is recruiting students from Brunei and other neighbouring countries to beef up its enrolment, as it adds more Islamic modules and programmes into its range of academic offerings.
UCSI Terengganu Chief Operating Officer Mohd Suhaimi Shamsuddin (picture) said in a recent interview that the campus, which currently has 200 students, is working on getting more enrollees from neighbouring markets after already penetrating the Arabic countries and China.
Currently, 25 per cent of its students come from the Arab countries while 18 per cent are from China, Mohd Suhaimi said. Around five per cent are from Maldives and Sri Lanka, while the rest are from the ASEAN states, he added.
“Our focus countries for 2014 are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Brunei and Papua New Guinea,” he said.
The next intake of the campus is in May, during which it hopes to get 40 new entrants.
The campus has a tie-up with UCSI Kuala Lumpur for its Medical programme, wherein Malaysian medical students earn part of their credits in the Terengganu campus.
UCSI Terengganu also has programmes on Education, and Oil and Gas Management, which the official said is a monopoly of the campus.
“We offer both BBA and MBA for Oil and Gas Management... In ASEAN, only this campus offers the programme,” he said.
The campus is working on a fourth programme, on Islamic Banking and Finance, Mohd Suhaimi said.
“Currently we have eight students (taking it up). We need two more for it to be launched as a programme,” he said.
The move to offer the Islamic finance programme, he said, stems from the location of the campus as well as the global clamour for more conservative banking practices.
Noting that the campus is hosted by an Islamic state – around 97 per cent of Terengganu’s one million-strong population are Muslims — he said the UCSI Group has decided to incorporate Islamic course offerings into the programmes of the Terengganu varsity.
“The east coast of Malaysia is synonymous to Islam. We offer Finance in the Kuala Lumpur campus, but we took Islamic Banking and Finance and placed it in Terengganu,” he said.
Meanwhile, shifts in the global economy also precipitate the need for more Islamic finance offerings, he added.
“The economy is different now because of 2008,” when the global banking industry went into a crisis due to unmanageable sub-prime loans. “Everybody is searching for Islamic banking and finance,” he said.
The campus is also integrating an Islamic module into its early childhood development offering, Mohd Suhaimi said.
Other initiatives in the offing include potential collaboration with international universities that would allow students to earn some of their credits in the campus before proceeding to partner universities elsewhere and vice-versa.
"We are looking to collaborate with other universities and institutions to minimise expenses for the students. We (should) have the same syllabus, so students can do two years here and one year in the partner institution, and vice-versa," he said.
The campus, Mohd Suhaimi said, accommodates students of all faiths, as evidenced by the fact that Christians, Buddhists and Hindus together make up half of its populace.
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