Following the upgrading of University’s status to Autonomous University, the Management should grab the chance to attract top scholars from all places out of Malaysia. To do that, of course the University must have its own strength to lure more international students to UTM as their first choice of consideration. This is achievable by ensuring UTM students are able to find jobs in the market. This policy is proven by Multimedia University (MMU). All students have signed a contract with the university. The university have collaboration with a lot of industries in the market. This can be the most powerful strategy to attract students to choose UTM as their favorite institution.
Apart from that, the University Management may consider offering more courses such as political science, dentistry, medicine, pharmacy and agriculture. The introduction of Nuclear Engineering as announced by Dato’ NC recently is the right first move. Besides that, try to diversify the University not just in terms of academic, the Management can consider introducing its own profitable centre like what has been done by UM or UKM – run their own hospital. Of course, UTM as a premier engineering university can do something that is closely related to engineering. My suggestion is go to robotic field and if possible, try to market it in line with the university tag line – Innovative, Entrepreneurial and Global. In the latest evaluation method in world ranking, university’s income carries 5% weightage over 100%. I believe through this method, more or less can help in upgrading university ranking to another level. It is far more faster than only depending on international students fees. Lastly, another important factor is UTM degree’s certificate recognition in foreign countries around the world. This is a very important factor to gain confidence of people around the world. I do hope the UTM Management can take these into consideration as I believe UTM still has a lot of space to grow.
Thank you and all the best to UTM.