Malaysian universities promote their courses |19 August 2016

Seven top universities of Malaysia featured in an exhibition yesterday aimed at easing the process for Seychellois students to study in this far eastern country.

Held at Eden Bleu Hotel on Eden Island, the exhibition was organised by the Malaysia Education Centre (Mec) and the local Agency for National Human Resource Development (ANHRD).

This event follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in April this year between ANHRD and the Winning Magnitude which is trading as a Mec.

Mec is supported and endorsed by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS) and Malaysian Education Promotion Centre (MPEC) Dubai to provide free services to students who wish to study in Malaysia.

Present were representatives from Taylor’s University, Sunway University, SEGi University and College, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), University of Nottingham, Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur and Asia Pacific University (APU).

Most of the universities were offering scholarships to students who have required results to meet the scholarship schemes and ANHRD were promoting the priority fields of study available in Malaysia.

The list of priority fields of study are medicine, teaching, accounting and finance, tourism and hospitality management, aquaculture, aquatic science, information technology, dentistry, law, social work, psychology, nursing, structural engineering, civil engineering, food science and food safety, transport and logistics, environmental science, among others.

Mec managing director Fadil Ruhomutally said the potential students are able to learn about the courses on offer and procedures for admission to make smooth transition.

“To gain admission in a Malaysian University on your own comes with a lot of headache, at any university actually, so we are here to facilitate all the procedures so that the students don’t have any issues,” he said.

Mec has a regional office based in Mauritius and it holds exhibition all around. This is a first Malaysia exhibition in Seychelles and one is expected to be held every consecutive year.

“We are promoting around the region and we’ve seen that Seychellois are fluent in English, have good education and they are generally good students which is what Malaysia wants in terms of category of students,” he said.

The cost of studying in Malaysia is one third of the cost of studying in the UK or Canada, according to Mr Ruhomutally.

“The weather here is similar to that in Malaysia and the cost of living there is much lower than in Seychelles so Seychellois students like it over there and they can easily adapt. We get good feedback from them, they like their lifestyle and their studies so we are trying to promote in countries where we have a positive outlook,” he said.

The government in Seychelles promotes higher education and also sponsors the students which he observed not many countries do.

“I hope that the Seychellois realise how good the government is because there are so many students around the world with excellent results but without the means to study abroad and Seychellois have the chance to have a government that is pushing for higher education,” she said.

Nelson Libanotis, 27 years old and who is expected to leave for Malaysia within the next two weeks said: “I came down to get certain clarifications which were unclear for instance our student visa as school starts next week and a few of us have not received our visas.”

He will be following his bachelor in international tourism management and specialisation in travel and recreation at the Taylor’s University for the next three years.

Second year A-level student Alvin Bonnelame who wants to further his education in accounting and finance said he was encouraged by his friend to come along and check out what the universities were offering.

“So far the APU has caught my eye but I’m still in the planning stage so Malaysia is not my only alternative as I’m still on the look out for other schools,” he said.

Shirley Dubel, who is a nurse by profession and wants to pursue a BSc in nursing, said the course she was looking for was not being displayed at the exhibition but rather the branch of medicine.

She was told that during the next exhibition there will be a nursing programme involved and they will contact her.

“I don’t know much about Malaysia itself but I know about Singapore and they are rather similar I suppose and I find their study programmes interesting. Besides, violent crimes are unheard of in Malaysia so it will be a safe environment for me to study in,” she said.