MIT chooses Indonesia to establish joint campus, Najib dismayed

FORMER Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has expressed his dismay over recent news that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tsinghua University has chosen Indonesia to establish a joint university campus.

MIT is a technology university in the US that is ranked number one globally by rating agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) while China’s Tsinghua University is ranked 17th globally on the same list.

According to Najib, Malaysia had the potential to be an international education hub with the presence of renowned universities from abroad in Malaysia.

“The existence of international campuses here lowers the cost for Malaysian students to gain world-standard education,” he said.

“This is in line with the Barisan Nasional (BN)’s Government’s desire to provide quality education as a platform to increase creative, innovative and highly skilled human capital which will increase the country’s competitiveness.”

Najib further mentioned that during his tenure as education minister (1995-1999), 11 international university campuses were established.

He said that this has benefitted hundreds of thousands of students while helping them save on their education.

However, he observed that these efforts seem to have stopped after GE14.

In his post he also applauded former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who, in 2018, mentioned University of Tsukuba’s intention to establish a campus in either Selangor or Kedah.

The university in Tokyo is ranked number 285 on the QS World University Rankings list.

“However, there hasn’t been any new updates on the plan in the past few years,” Najib pointed out.

He also went on to express his hopes that Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin will continue to put in more effort to attract not just the University of Tsukuba but other world-renowned universities as well to establish a campus in the country.

“This is so that the country can fulfil its aspiration to be an international education hub and increase the country’s human capital,” he added. – Jan 20, 2022

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