I read the book titled “Higher Education in Malaysia - Personal Experiences and New Perspectives” exclusively presented to me by the author, Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr. Anuwar Ali, Former Vice Chancellor (VC) of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), and President of Open University Malaysia (OUM) at the 2nd Wisdom Malaysia Conference (WMC) 2026. I have a soft spot with UKM and proud to show this book to my family and grandchildren because my wife, Zarina's uncle, Allahyarham Dato' Dr. Ariffin Ngah Marzuki, the first Malay gynaecologist in the country, was the Founding VC of UKM. Zarina is also graduated with Bachelor in Accounting UKM and our eldest daughter, Izni Fauzan obtained Master of Accounting UKM. During my tenure with Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Academy, I collaborated with UKM Faculty of Economics & Management to offer a series of MBA programs for talented MAS managers, executives, engineers and pilots as part of their management development and career progression opportunities.
I learned from Tan Sri Anuwar, who has served as Director General of Higher Education at the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Malaysia, that "Supervised by MOHE, the ecosystem supports over 1.26 million tertiary students across 20 public universities, 54 private universities, and 10 foreign branch campuses. This sector is being propelled by major fiscal expansions, unprecedented policy shifts under a 10-year master plan, and rising international prestige. Launched earlier this year, the groundbreaking Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint 2026-2035 (Rancangan Pendidikan Tinggi Malaysia) has fundamentally restructured and implemented the administrative landscape: Pre-University Centralization; The 4.0 CGPA Guarantee; Mandatory National Identity Curricula; and Local Intellectual Sovereignty."
I understand international students make-up 12.6% of the entire tertiary population, concentrated in postgraduate research tracks. In alignment with national industrial goals like the New Industrial Master Plan (NIMP) 2030, higher education has aggressively pivoted toward Advances Technical Education and Training (TVET), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Infrastructure to combat the acute professional engineers, technologists and scientists shortages, in the country.
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