USM, PENANG, January 2017 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Nagoya City Board of Education (NCBE) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation in the education field.

USM Vice-Chancellor Professor Datuk Dr. Asma Ismail said the MoU signing further testified the commitment of both organisations in strengthening the education programmes with academic contents and educational activities that would benefit the students and staff members of both organisations.

"Besides symposiums between staff and students from both organisations, USM will also provide English and cultural programmes, lectures and English teaching training programmes to high school students and teachers from Nagoya city, Japan,” she said at the signing ceremony here recently.

"I hope the students and teachers who come to USM for English learning will be willing to involve themselves in community engagement and voluntary work to build bonds and networking with the local staff and students as well as to gain as much experiential learning as possible especially about the Malaysian culture.

“At the same time, with the Japanese students around, our USM students would also get to globalise their mindset, will be able to understand Japanese culture and thinking better, and learn values like discipline, hardwork, etiquette and integrity from them," she added.

Asma also mentioned that this collaboration would help to increase staff and student mobility besides expanding USM international education network with institutions abroad.

To date, USM has established collaborations with 33 institutions in Japan, among them are Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (KUFS), RIKEN Institute, Toray Industries, Sumitomo Foundation, and Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST).

Meanwhile, NCBE Superintendent, Masami Sugisaki said that it planned to establish a global educational institution in Nagoya as part of its globalisation dan localisation efforts in promoting educational and cultural studies especially among the younger generation, and hope to invite USM students to be part of their learning programmes.

Nagoya city, with a population over 2.2 million, is among the three largest metropolitans in Japan (after Tokyo and Osaka) and has around 415 education institutions ranging from preschool to university.

Also present at the signing ceremony were the USM Deputy Vice-Chancelor (Student Development Affairs and Alumni) Professor Dato’ Dr. Adnan Hussein; Deans of several Schools involved in the education programmes; NCBE Teachers’ Consultant, Takahiro Kukita; Director of KUFS-USM Japanese Cultural Centre, Masatoshi Soeda and the university principal officers.