KUALA LUMPUR – Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s (UKM) branch campus in Doha, Qatar will start offering four undergraduate and postgraduate programmes offshore by the end of the year.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the branch campus is a collaborative project between UKM and The Regional Group of Qatar, a company managing real estate development, asset management, agriculture, and Islamic investment.
“The Regional Group of Qatar will be responsible for the management and provision of facilities and infrastructure, while UKM will be responsible for providing academic input, including matters involving curriculum, teaching and learning, quality assurance, and graduation,” he said in a statement today.
The statement was issued following a working visit by Khaled, his ministry’s delegation, and Education Malaysia Global Services – a company under the ministry which promotes Malaysia as an international education hub – to Doha last Monday and Tuesday.
He said that, during the visit, he also held meetings with the Qatar Foundation, which was represented by its higher education president Francisco J. Marmolejo, Education Above All Foundation chief executive Fahad Hamad Hasan Al-Sulaiti, and Foundation for Humanity chief executive Ayedh Dabsan Al-Qahtani.
Khaled said that, at the meeting, some of the matters discussed were sponsorship and higher education assistance for refugees and students from countries facing conflicts, as well as efforts in responding to Islamophobia.
“In addition, (we) also discussed exploring opportunities for cooperation in strengthening technical and vocational education training programmes in both countries, sharing
experiences from Malaysia with Qatar to help develop and expand the waqaf instruments in the higher education sector,” he said.
According to Khaled, during a meeting with Qatar Education and Higher Education Minister Buthaina Ali Al-Nuaimi, they discussed research collaboration, offering offshore programmes, and the channelling of Qatar Fund for Development aid for educational purposes.
During the working visit, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Al Jazeera Media Institute and Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM) was also inked to give UIAM communications majors the chance to get field training and courses at the news organisation.
Meanwhile, Khaled posted on Facebook that the ministry also managed to ink several MoUs during the Kazan (Russia-Islamic world) Forum, which took place yesterday and today in Kazan, Russia.
This involved, among others, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia inking MoUs with Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg Electrotechnical University, and Institute of Biomedical Chemistry. – Bernama, May 19, 2023
