USM, PENANG, 27 April 2016 – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been offered the opportunity to establish a hub for higher education to provide for postgraduate degree programmes at the Master’s and Ph.D levels, especially in the fields of Management and Business Management, through a cooperation with Makerere University Business School (MUBS) Kampala, Uganda.

According to the Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies and Business MUBS, Dr. Muhammed Ngoma said that his side is always ready for cooperation with USM, in view of the huge market that is available in the African continent and the strategic location of Uganda for such ventures.

“With such means, USM would be able to ‘transport’ the expertise from Malaysia, at a time when Uganda and Africa are in the midst of developing its education sector, to have more and better educated skilled workforce for the development of the African countries, especially Uganda,” said Muhammed Ngoma.

USM and MUBS also hope to explore possibilities for cooperation in offering joint degrees for higher education there.

He added that, by having the collaboration with USM, it is hoped that there would be improvements in the standard of education at MUBS, especially in relation to the academicians from MUBS pursuing their Ph.D education at USM. 

Earlier, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Vice-Chancellor of USM, Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman to facilitate both parties in establishing educational cooperation which include the exchange of staff and students, as well as exchange in expertise and research.

Omar who welcomed the opportunity offered said that, USM would realize the effort to establish the smart partnership and collaboration for future potentials.

“When previously USM was able to initiate similar efforts in other countries like India and Indonesia, this kind of collaboration would be implemented in the best way possible to further extend the available expertise and experiences involving the staff, researchers and also the postgraduate students,” said Omar.

Explained Omar more, this arrangement would also involve the lecturers from MUBS travelling to USM for joint researches and collaborations with a number of academic schools at USM such as the School of Management and the Graduate School of Business.

"USM currently caters to students from Uganda, South Africa and Sudan, and we hope to raise the number of students from the African continent, especially at Master’s and Ph.D levels.” 

Also present at the ceremony were the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Professor Dato’ Dr. Muhamad Jantan; Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Industry and Community Network) Professor Dato’ Dr. See Ching Mey; Dean of School of Humanities, Associate Professor Dr. Narimah Samat, and MUBS senior academic staff, Kutosi Ayub Masaba.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin

Text: Mohamad Abdullah / Photo: Mohd Fairus Md. Isa