45 colleges deregistered

05/06/2010

By TAN SHIOW CHIN

PUTRAJAYA: The Higher Education Ministry has deregistered 45 private colleges for flouting the Private Higher Education Institution Act last year, said Deputy Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung.

Another 38 avoided deregistration but other forms of action were taken against them for infringing the Act.

A further 96 institutions are being monitored. Of this number, 33 had been hauled up, given a chance to explain and allowed to continue operating pending observation.

According to Dr Hou, the weeding process, which started last year, was to safeguard the interest of students and maintain a high standard for all courses offered in all private higher education institutions in the coun-try.

“Since last year, the ministry has embarked on the ‘levelling-up and weeding-out’ process among private higher education institutions.

“The ministry will not hesitate to mete out heavier punishment (to errant institutions), for example, to downgrade the status of a university to university college, university college to college, and for colleges, to cancel their registration.

“The performing higher education institutions, on the other hand, will be rewarded with elevation,” he said.

Among the infringements committed were conducting courses without approval or with expired approval, changing premises without prior approval and operating in unregistered premises.

The deputy minister was speaking during the signing ceremony between Education@Iskandar Sdn Bhd, Maritiem Instituut Willem Barentsz, Maritiem Instituut De Ruyter and Maritime Intel Sdn Bhd to set up the Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology at Iskandar Malaysia’s Educity in Johor.

The two renowned Dutch maritime institutions will be joining forces with Education@Iskandar to set up the first Asian Dutch maritime institution.

It will open its doors to students beginning next January.

It will initially offer four diploma courses – Maritime Transport Management, Port Ma-nagement, Shipping Management, and Marine Health Safety, Security and Environment.

The diplomas will be awarded by the Maritiem Instituut Willem Barentsz and the Maritiem Instituut De Ruyter.

The institute will operate at a temporary campus in Kotaraya, Johor Baru, before moving to its permanent premises in EduCity by 2012.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/5/nation/6405395&sec=nation

Too many top scorers, too few PSD scholarships

05/06/2010

By LOH FOON FONG

KUALA LUMPUR: It is not possible to award Public Services Department (PSD) scholarships to all of the SPM straight-A students because there are too many of them.

Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong said 7,800 students obtained straight As while the PSD could only offer 1,500 scholarships.

Engrossed: Pupils Lai Siew Shan (left) and Chin Xin Yee looking at a book at the Read Malaysia fair in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

However, MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek and Dr Wee, who is also MCA Youth chief, said they had appealed to the PSD during a recent meeting to give out more scholarships in view of the high number of top scorers.

During the meeting with PSD director-general Tan Sri Ismail Adam, Dr Chua and Dr Wee brought up the case of 1,304 top SPM scorers who did not get scholarships from the department.

“Currently, 1,500 scholarships are given out, 214 to students with A+s,” said Dr Wee after launching the Read Malaysia 2010 book fair yesterday.

Dr Wee hoped that in future students with the most number of A+s would be given priority in the awarding of scholarships.

He also said that the DAP should not hit out at him because the awarding of the scholarships was not under his ministry.

At the book fair, Dr Wee said that the Malaysian Reading Profile Study 2005 by the National Library found that the number of books read by Malaysians in the past 10 years improved to two books each a year compared to the average of only two pages in 1996.

“Despite the improvement, the figure is still minimal for a nation that has a population of 28 million, and we hope Malaysians will also choose books that are of substance to read,” he added.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/5/nation/6405608&sec=nation