BUCME - EDUCATION Malaysia

PUTRAJAYA: Mount Austin International University, a private university linked to businessman Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, has been given the go-ahead to open. 

Managed by Kumpulan Perintis Utama Sdn Bhd (KPU), the university will offer degrees in business management, accounting, information technology, design and engineering. 

The RM700mil university campus, to be located in Johor, will be able to accommodate up to 10,000 students and its first batch is expected to enrol in 2008. 

“The creation of this international university gives local and foreign students another option to pursue quality higher level education which is on par with international standards,” KPU director Datuk Seri Dr Abdul Shukor Abdullah said. 

He received an invitation letter to set up the university from Higher Education Ministry yesterday. In the same ceremony yesterday, five private colleges also received letters to be upgraded to university colleges. 

They are Sunway University College, Help University College, Binary University College of Management and Entrepreneurship, Asia Pacific University College of Information Technology, and Kisdar International Islamic University College. 

Higher Education Minister Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh, who was present at the event, said his ministry was looking at amending the Private Higher Education Act 1996 to allow foreign universities with branch campuses here to offer courses without having to get approval from Private Education Department's and National Accreditation Board's (LAN). 

However, he said, the universities had to be reputable ones and the courses must already be accredited by a quality assurance agency or accreditation body that was equivalent to LAN, or if the Public Services Department recognised the course. 

He also announced that colleges could now upgrade their 2+1 courses to 3+0 programmes without having to run them for at least five years first. 

“These institutions now only need to obtain accreditation for their 2+1 programme before applying to offer 3+0 programmes,” Dr Shafie said.

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