JOHOR BARU: Prince Andrew the second son of Queen Elizabeth II opened Johor's latest international institute of learning, the Newcastle University of Medicine Malaysia (NUMed).
Dressed in a grey suit, the prince gave a brief speech when he opened the university in a hall that took in only a selected audience yesterday. Students strained their necks to catch a glimpse of the royal guest and to take pictures of him from an upper terrace.
Prince Andrew said the opening of the campus would popularise the university and draw students from all over the world to the institution. “It is an honour to have Johor and Britain to work together on the university. It is good collaboration,” he added, thanking the state government under Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman as well as NUmed chancellor Sir Liam Donaldson and vice-chancellor Prof Chris Brink in their common quest for excellence.
About 80 students have begun a five-year course beginning September. The university at Nusajaya, near here, is targeting a student intake of 900 by 2017. The campus is part of the broader 125ha EduCity that is being built in the Iskandar Malaysia development corridor and designed to promote the country as a world-class education hub and to house a range of international universities in one area.
Prince Andrew, who is also the Duke of York, arrived in Malaysia on Sunday for a three-day visit in his capacity as Britain's special representative for international trade and investment.
This is his second visit to Malaysia since 2001.
Abdul Ghani envisaged the university would become a major contributor to the national effort to raise the number of trained doctors from 3,000 annually to 4,000 in five years' time. “The state is proud that NUMed is the first and flagship campus to be established at EduCity in Iskandar Malaysia and, therefore, represents a key British investment in this significant growth corridor,” Abdul Ghani added.
Sir Liam said NUMed provided trans-national access to world-class medical education for Malaysian and international students, otherwise denied by geographical or financial circumstances. “In the longer term, we hope very much to contribute to meeting Malaysia's human capital needs and also improving medical services and healthcare that people receive in the region,” he said.
-thestar online.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/numed/
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