The Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) branch campus in Doha, Qatar will start offering four undergraduate and postgraduate level programmes offshore by the end of this 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, which is 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 (P&P), quality assurance and graduation,” he said in a statement today.
The statement was issued following a working visit by Khaled, the delegation from his ministry and Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS) to Doha, Qatar on May 15-16.
He said that, during the visit, he also held meetings with Qatar Foundation (QF), which was represented by its Higher Education president Francisco J. Marmolejo, Education Above All Foundation chief executive officer Fahad Hamad Hasan Al Sulaiti and Foundation for Humanity chief executive officer Dr Ayedh Dabsan Al-Qahtani.
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KHALED-VISIT 2 (LAST) KUALA LUMPUR
He 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 the prejudice and stigma of Islamophobia.
“In addition, (we) also discussed exploring opportunities for cooperation in strengthening Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) programmes in both countries, holding 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 the 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 Aljazeera Media Institute and Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM) was also inked to give UIAM communications major students the chance to get field training and courses in Aljazeera.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Khaled posted on Facebook that the ministry also managed to ink several MoUs during the Kazan (Russia-Islamic world) 2023 Forum which, among others, involved Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE Russia); UTM and St Petersburg Electrotechnical University (LETI); and UTM and Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, Russia (????).
Source: BERNAMA News Agency