UMT, UniSZA agree to become one
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) and Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) have agreed in principle to merge.
In a joint press statement, UMT Vice-Chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Nor Aieni Mokhtar and her UniSZA counterpart, Professor Datuk Dr Hassan Basri Awang Mat Dahan, said they hoped the merger would boost UMT’s core thrusts in marine, maritime, oceanography and fishery, and UniSZA’s Islamic studies and medicine at the global level.
“We received a letter dated Sept 20 from the Higher Education Department (HED) about the cabinet’s decision on Sept 4, and agreed in principle for UMT and UniSZA to be merged using a ‘Full Merger Concept’.
“The decision stemmed from what was agreed in a cabinet meeting on April 5 that instructed the Education Ministry to study the proposal for UMT to be merged with UniSZA.
“We are aware that the ‘Full Merger Concept’ aims to maximise resources by realigning the universities’ expertise and infrastructure,” said the statement.
Other fields of knowledge in both universities would be strengthened in terms of quality and performance, either by realignment of academic programmes or internationalisation strategies.
The integration of different fields like engineering, science and social science between the two institutions could produce holistic graduates and improve their marketability.
UMT and UniSZA would present proposals on how the merger could be implemented for consideration by the Education Ministry in a series of workshops, beginning with the one organised by HED yesterday and today.
HED director-general Datuk Dr Hamisah Tapsir said the workshop was to gather views on the philosophy, hope and vision for the merger.
Hamisah was speaking after the closing ceremony of the English Language Carnival 2019 at UMT yesterday.
She said both universities had given positive feedback on the merger.
“They can see the possible models of the merged university.
“Now is the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where the way we convey knowledge is different, and with a bigger number of lecturers, more research and better performance can be achieved,” she said.
However, Hamisah declined to give a timeline on when the merger would take place.
“We are dealing with other ministries as we are in the planning stage. We are collecting feedback on how the new university will be implemented,” she said.