New Open university to open doors

5 January 2006
PENANG: Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Dato’ Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik will launch the construction of an open university campus here this Sunday. The campus will serve as the learning hub and headquarters of Wawasan Open University College and is poised to boost Penang's standing as a regional hub for higher education.
The Minister, who is also the Council Chairman of the university, is expected to officiate the ground-breaking witnessed by well-wishers from the Malaysian community as well as open distance learning experts from Canada, New Zealand, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore.
A home-grown university, Wawasan Open is uniquely placed in the international learning community. It operates in consultation with the International Advisory Board, which comprises founding members internationally renowned in the field of open learning, to peg the quality of its academic programmes against international standards.
At the press briefing, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chancellor Dato’ Professor Emeritus Gajaraj Dhanarajan said, “Developed countries consider that populations with less than 60 / 70% of post secondary education among its citizens are ill prepared to be active participants in the knowledge economies of today and tomorrow.”
“In Malaysia, we have some 9 million adult working Malaysians earning less than eleven years of schooling. Clearly, we need to democratise higher education and we need to do it fast, different and well."
In many parts of the world open distance learning has managed to increase educational opportunities for the masses by breaking down traditional barriers such as distance, time, accessibility, cost, age and prior academic achievements.
Working adults can take advantage of the university’s flexible self-paced learning environment and opt to acquire higher skills and knowledge without giving up on their jobs and family commitments.
Its programmes are specially designed to be student-centred and students learn mainly through innovative virtual learning techniques. They will be assisted by tutors at the regional learning centres and will benefit from specially designed course material.

Wawasan Open will start with three schools: Science and Technology, Business and Administration and the School of Foundation. Eleven degree programmes will be offered this September including Bachelors in management, sales and marketing, accounting, banking and finance, e-commerce, electronics and computer science.
The university headquarters and campus on a 3.3 acre piece of land in Penang is supported initially by learning centres in Penang, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Baru. The 12-storey campus building to be constructed will provide 11,000 sq m of functional space in addition to that of the existing heritage building, Homestead.
Wawasan Open University College is Malaysia’s first not-for-profit private open distance teaching institution. It is funded by Wawasan Education Foundation, a not-for-profit entity supported by donations from the Penang-based Yeap Chor Ee Trust/Endowment Fund and other charitable trusts, corporations and members of the public.