Asean and beyond

INTERNATIONAL foreign branch campuses have been part of Malaysia’s higher education landscape for over 20 years, with both Monash University Malaysia (MUM) and University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) opening at roughly the same time.

From our Malaysian campus, the

University of Nottingham is now reaching out into South-east Asia, and beyond, in the same way we reached out from the United Kingdom to Malaysia 20 years ago.

The catalyst for us being able to do this was when the World Bank and National University of Bangladesh selected Nottingham to run a programme that will upskill about 10,400 college leaders and lecturers in Bangladesh. This programme will last for five years and, three years in, it is already having a positive effect on the delivery of education in Bangladesh as delegates enrolled in the programme start to use the new pedagogical and technological skills they are being taught.

If the University of Nottingham did not have a campus in Malaysia, we would not have been able to deliver this high-profile and important initiative. This not only reflects well on Nottingham but also on Malaysia, demonstrating that we are able to deliver high-quality, high-profile initiatives in an international context. Moreover, it attracts international students to Malaysia, which is a key part of the country’s higher education strategy.

For the past 20 years or so, we have been delivering our MBA in Singapore. This was initially managed from the UK but now that we have a campus in Malaysia, we took over the management of this programme in 2014. We have recently started working with another partner in Singapore, enabling us to offer education-based programmes, in addition to our business programmes.

We also offer a Master of Arts in Education in Sri Lanka, which is delivered in that country by our staff flying to Colombo, rather than students coming to our campus. A similar model is being used to deliver a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in India.

Discussions with partners in Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand are taking place around delivering our foundation and postgraduate programmes in the respective countries. We hope that this will introduce students to a UK university-style education, which they can undertake in their own country before registering for higher degree programmes in Malaysia.

It is not only award-bearing programmes that have been possible thanks to us being able to reach out from our Malaysia base. Our Continued Professional Development (CPD) and Summer School offerings have also benefited from our presence in Malaysia. As an example, we have delivered CPD in both Thailand and Nepal, using a flyin model. We have also attracted a wide range of participants to our Malaysia campus for summer schools, whether they are immersion programmes, which give the delegates a taste of university education, or a programme where the participants develop a particular area or skill.

In addition to our outreach activities, we are still committed to supporting Malaysia’s higher education nation-building agenda through various activities. One high-profile and successful example is the Top Executive Programme for bursars and registrars from public and government-linked universities. With 53 participants, this programme offered professional service executive’s leadership and project management skills though the deliberate intervention of planning, managing and delivering a project at the end of five months.

We can put a dollar value on all our initiatives but, more importantly, it enables us to expand our offering beyond Malaysia. This increases our presence in Asia and we can reach out to those who could not previously access our courses as they had to travel to Malaysia or the UK.

We call this initiative “Asean and Beyond”, largely as it is aimed at the 10 members of Asean, but also so that we can reach out beyond the Asean region should the opportunity arise.

Twenty years ago, we reached out from the UK to Malaysia. Twenty years on, we are now reaching out from our base in Malaysia. “Asean and Beyond” is a reality we are proud of.

Prof Graham Kendall is the chief executive officer, provost and pro-vice-chancellor of University of Nottingham Malaysia. Twitter: @Graham_kendall