Education update

Malaysian Business, Feb 16, 2006 by Lynda Ng

COLLEGES FORM CONSORTIUM IN PERAK

IN December last year, four Ipoh-based colleges joined hands to form the Perak Consortium of Colleges with the aim of promoting Perak as a centre of higher education.

Together, the consortium claims a student population of 2,000, making it the largest in Perak.

The four outfits - Perak Institute of Technology, Keris College, Institut Kompas and PIA College of Art and Design - will share certain facilities and resources. On top of that, potential students will also receive information and counselling on all partner colleges.

Welcoming the move, State Education, Human Resources and Multimedia Committee Chairman Datuk Dr Zambry Abd Kadir noted the advantages, including lower operating cost.

RM2.4 BILLION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION FUND

SOME 110,000 students are expected to get close to RM2.4 billion in loans this year from the Higher Education Fund, also known as PTPTN or Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional.

Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Fu Ah Kiow said that RM722 million will be for first-year students in public and private tertiary institutions while the remainder is for second-and final- year students.

At present, RM372 million remain in arrears. He said that 473 loan defaulters have been blacklisted in newspapers while 22 were issued with court orders.

At the same time, the government is also doing away with the practice of exempting borrowers who obtain first-class degrees from having to pay back their loans.

Up to last year, Fu said 2,464 students who borrowed RM5.5 million from the fund had been exempted from paying back on the grounds of their exceptional results. Since August 1997, the funds had approved loans amounting to RM15.36 billion to about 800,000 students.

INFUSING ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

HOW do you infuse entrepreneurship into students? This is the latest challenge thrown by the authorities to local universities and colleges.

The higher education institutions have been asked to throw in elements of entrepreneurship in their curriculum. The purpose: To nurture a business mindset among undergraduates.

Higher Education Management Department Director-General Prof Datuk Dr Hassan Said notes that some universities have devised ways and means of achieving the desired end result. Some universities have introduced entrepreneurship as a major while others have set up businesses on campus to give undergraduates an opportunity to practise their skills.

`I want students to read about great entrepreneurs, talk about their experiences, think of business ideas and develop business skills,' he told journalists.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT RAMPANT IN US COLLEGES

NEARLY two-thirds of college students in the United States are affected by sexual harassment - ranging from offensive jokes and gestures to touching and grabbing, according to a study recently released.

According to a Reuters report, men are more likely to harass than women, but women and men are equally likely to be harassed on US campuses, according to a report by the American Association of University Women.

Researchers found that 62% of college students experienced sexual harassment, and 32% of college students said they were victims of physical harassment.

`The primary form of harassment that we're seeing is actually non- contact, it tends to be remarks, gestures and jokes. But the fact that one-third of college students are experiencing some form of physical harassment is certainly a concern,' says Elena Silva, the report's co- author.

In a representative survey of 2,036 undergraduates in US colleges and universities, 41% said they had sexually harassed someone.

A UNIVERSITY FOR INDIAN DIASPORA

THE INDIAN Diaspora longs for an education for its new generation. To cater to that need, the government is planning to set up a special university for People of Indian Origin (PIO), reports The Times of India.

`The Centre will establish a university to provide access to affordable and quality education to the children of PIOs. It will primarily cater to the needs of students of Indian origin from Malaysia, Mauritius and a few Southeast Asian countries,' the newspaper quotes Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Secretary S Krishna Kumar.

The university could be located either in India or abroad. The secretary's remarks came on the heels of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent speech that his government was interested in establishing a university exclusively for PIOs to cater for the unmet demand for higher education in a number of countries.

Proposal to set up the university also fits in the larger context of opening up the education sector to private investment and attracting more PIOs to study in India.

Currently, foreign students wanting to study in Indian universities or colleges affiliated to them are required to apply through the Ministry of Human Resources Development and the Department of Education. Several universities have set aside a certain percentage of seats for Diaspora students.

However, many of them have been facing several technical problems such as fulfilling official formalities like student visas and others. Against this backdrop, there has been a long-standing demand from Non-Residents Indians for a PIO university.