Divvy Kant Upadhyay
Daijiworld Media Network
Kuala Lumpur, Jun 19: On his first overseas trip after taking over as the Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal visited the campus of the Melaka Manipal Medical College(MMMC) in Malaysia where he inaugurated a state-of-the-art sports complex.
Minister Sibal was in Malaysia to attend the five-day 17th Commonwealth ministers' conference being held at Kuala Lampur. Addressing the students and faculty Sibal appreciated the Manipal Education and Medical Group’s efforts. The MMMC was an outcome of an agreement between JVMC Corporation Sdn Bhd and Manipal University. The MoU for the joint venture was infact signed by the two parties in the presence of the former Malaysian PM Mohd Mahatir and former Indian PM Narasimha Rao in New Delhi in 1993. The medical degree which is conferred by Manipal University is recognised by the Malaysian Medical Council and the Malaysian government.
Sibal urged the Manipal Group to expand its capacity and promised to provide full support of the government. He also appreciated that despite challenges within and outside the system the group was imparting knowledge without compromising on quality.
Sibal outlined the many measures that his ministry is planning to embark upon to expand and strengthen the education sector in India. Speaking about the introduction of the ‘Right to Education Bill’, he termed it as an epochal event. He also mentioned that ‘Foreign Universities Bill’ is being looked into, and hoped that Private Public Partnerships (PPP), joint ventures and the Trusts, could play a larger role in the field of higher education. He also emphasized the role of distance education in propagating higher education at affordable costs by tapping advances in technology.
It is interesting to note that in 2005, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh while addressing the Indian diaspora in Kuala Lampur expressed his happiness at the fact that a significant proportion of "practicing doctors and legal luminaries in Malaysia have obtained professional degrees from Indian universities." He however added that since the 1980s this trend slowed down for several reasons. At the same meeting Dr Singh said “You will be happy to know that we are concluding an MoU with Malaysia in education, in which Mutual Recognition Arrangements of educational qualifications is an integral component. We will find new projects to replicate the successful twinning experiment between the Melaka-Manipal Medical Colleges".
India and Malaysia agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in education. This was decided at a meeting between Malaysia’s minister for higher education Mohamed Khaled Nordin and Kapil Sibal in Kuala Lumpur. The two met on the sidelines of the 17th conference of the Commonwealth education ministers. India’s High Commissioner to Malaysia Ashok Kantha took part in the talks.
Today, apart from running an extesnive healthcare setup, the Manipal Group trains over 180,000 students at Manipal, Mangalore, Bangalore, Dubai, Sikkim, Malaysia and Nepal through on-campus as well as distance learning.