The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Showcasing Malaysia as an education destination

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 21, 2006

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Showcasing Malaysia as an education destination

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A two-day `Malaysian education exhibition,' showcasing various degree and postgraduate courses in universities in that country, will be held at Hotel Mascot in Thiruvananthapuram from Saturday.

Eight universities from Malaysia and officials from the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education will participate in the fair. This was disclosed at a press conference held in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday night.

According to Kabilan, the official in charge of promoting education in Malaysia in India, the fair will seek to highlight the high quality and low living and tuition costs and the stable political and cultural environment of Malaysia to win Indian students over.

Students who have completed their Plus Two can choose to do their graduate course in Malaysia on a `twinning basis' or on a `three plus zero' basis. A large number of universities in Malaysia have tie-ups with British, Canadian, American and Australian universities.

Under these agreements, a student can do two years of graduate study in Malaysia and then, under the twinning programme, do the final year at one of the western universities. The degree will be awarded by one of these universities.

`This arrangement means that the student will have to spend much less than what he would have done had he studied all three years in a western university," Mr. Kabilan explained. "But then the student can also opt for the three plus zero option and do all the three years in Malaysia itself. Five western universities have their branch campuses in Malaysia."

Students who have completed Class X can also opt to do a one-year bridge course in Malaysia and then move on to a full-fledged degree programme, thus saving one year of education.

Manager of the Dubai office of the Malaysia Education Promotion Centre A.J. Mohammed Azar said his office had received a lot of enquiries from NRI Indians and NRI Keralites about educational opportunities in Malaysia. This was one of the reasons for choosing Kerala to hold the first-ever `Malaysian education exhibition.'

The first exhibition was held recently in Kochi, he said.

Assistant director in the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education Aziz Jaafar, who took part in the press conference, said 5,000 of the 63,000 foreign students studying in his country were from India. Of these, a majority were from Kerala. Getting a student Visa to Malaysia was relatively easier than getting one to western countries, he added.

Representatives from various universities in Malaysia also participated in the press conference.

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