Malaysia-Australia Student Mobility Forum

MEDIU’s Head of Counselling and Student Activities Department; Mr. Mahmoud Radwan Hussein Al-Zgool recently attended ‘Malaysia-Australia Student Mobility Forum’ on Monday, 19 May 2014 in Kuala Lumpur. The forum is a joint program between Australian Educational Institutional(AEI) Malaysia and the Malaysian Ministry of Education(MOE) which attracts nearly 20 representatives from Australian universities and Malaysian institutes respectively. The forum was designed to create opportunities for discussion and sharing towards facilitating increased mobility between the two countries.

The forum was officiated by Mr. Trevor Goddard; Associate Director Global Programs of Monash University and among the distinguished guests are His Excellency Mr. Rod Smith; Australian High commissioner to Malaysia and His Honorable Datuk Dr.Madinah Binti Mohamed, Secretary General of Ministry of Education Malaysia.

Among the agenda of the forum are session on the visa regulations, the experiences of the Australian branch campuses, session with the internship providers and representatives from both private and public Malaysian higher education sector, students studying at the branch campuses shared their experiences and discussion by panel of experts on the expectations and requirements of students in undertaking a study program in Malaysia. The forum created an opportunity for the Malaysian institutes to seek potential partners for exchange and short term mobility and from the Australian perspective, it provided an essential overview of opportunities available within a country often overlooked by universities when considering Asia for outbound mobility destinations.

Mr. Al-Zgool managed to discuss with the Counsellor (Education and Science) of Australian High Commission; Mrs. Karen Welsh in promoting MEDIU to provide training programs in Islamic studies such as Islamic Banking for the Australian students and staff. She was keen on ideas of the training programs for the students and willing to cooperate to implement it successfully in the near future.