One of the United Kingdom’s largest and most successful universities has signed a major partnership agreement in Kuala Lumpur heralding further expansion of its already pivotal role in the education of Malaysian and Asia-Pacific healthcare professionals.
Malaysia Minister for Higher Education YB Dat' Seri Mohamed Khaled bin Nordin with Professor Andrew Wathey, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Northumbria University, at New Year Banquet to Celebrate Signing.
The country's Minister for Higher Education, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin joined representatives of Malaysia's Department of Health and the United Kingdom Government to witness the signing by the leaders of Northumbria University (United Kingdom) and MAHSA University College (Kuala Lumpur).
The agreement deepens long-standing bonds between Northumbria University and Malaysia, and will promote research activity and a greatly-broadened academic portfolio designed to meet the future needs of the healthcare economy in South East Asia.
Several of Northumbria's allied health degree programmes, delivered by Northumbria University staff, are currently offered in partnership with MAHSA University College at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Today's Memorandum of Agreement opens the way for new UK quality-assured and assessed courses, aimed at both pre-registration and post-qualification practitioners. It also provides the opportunity to develop new areas in the curriculum, such as biomedical sciences, and healthcare law and governance.
Northumbria University Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Professor Andrew Wathey, and the University's Dean of Health Community and Education Studies, Professor Kath McCourt FRCN, signed the agreement alongside MAHSA University College founding Principal and Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Dr Mohamed Haniffa.
MAHSA was established to create a national centre of excellence in Medical, Nursing and Allied Health Science education, and has undergone rapid expansion since 2005, with state-of-the-art clinical teaching facilities in the Malaysian capital. Datuk Dr Mohamed Haniffa is today one of the country's most high profile and successful entrepreneurs, whose commitment is to help establish Malaysia as a centre of global excellence in both higher education and professional healthcare.
He said: “In Northumbria we have a partner of distinction. Its academic staff know us well, we trust and respect one another, and we value the fact that Northumbria professionals have worked within Malaysia for decades. The institution has invested in vital allied healthcare research and in the provision of renowned and innovative programmes.
“At MAHSA we strive to offer students healthcare education which combines theoretical knowledge with the challenge of clinical exposure, and which will nurture the highest professional standards. Northumbria's expertise and partnership strengthens this ability, and gives our students broader insight. Together our programmes are in great demand by a fast growing workforce, across a nation which continues to transform its healthcare and education systems.”
Professor Wathey said: “In the early 1990s our academic staff were already delivering healthcare education, and building capacity within Malaysia's health services, using communications and teaching technologies which are now obsolete. The expertise and outstanding infrastructure available to us today, through our collaboration with MAHSA, allows our academic teams to work with Asia's healthcare professionals on an altogether different scale. Expansion of these activities will be a tremendous opportunity for both partners.
“What has remained constant since the earliest days of our work is the commitment to high quality, well-supported learning, and to research and curriculum development informed by two-way partnership. Both MAHSA and Northumbria have a sincere desire to enhance learning, healthcare and the creation of knowledge in both of our countries. We are particularly pleased to have the approval and support of the Minister and his senior colleagues in government.”
The School of Health Community and Education Studies at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom has more than 8000 students based at newly built or refurbished facilities at Coach Lane Campus, near the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in North East England. An international institution, Northumbria is today one of the UK's ten biggest recruiters of students from outside of the European Union. Alongside institutions such as University College London, Manchester University and The London School of Economics, it is also one of Britain's ten biggest providers of taught postgraduate education.
Research engaged and business focussed, Northumbria's performance in the last national assessment of research quality was the most improved of any university in the North of England, with eleven of twelve areas submitted found to be undertaking "world-leading" work, with "internationally excellent" research identified throughout. The institution, which delivers programmes in 30 of the UK's 32 most popular subjects, recently embarked on an ambitious programme of development at home and overseas. It seeks to sustain an outstanding student experience, to strengthen capacity in areas of proven research quality and in postgraduate research and teaching, to forge new partnerships with business and the professions, and to increase its contribution to the economic, social and cultural well-being of both its home region and societies worldwide.
