Pagoh Education Hub Boasts Array Of Shared Facilities

By Ahmad Muliady Abdul Majid

MUAR (Bernama) -- The Pagoh Higher Education Hub is a township integrated with an education hub comprising four public higher education institutions, making it the first of its kind in ASEAN.

The four universities are the Tun Syed Nasir Syed Ismail Polytechnic (PTSN), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). All four institutions enjoy shared facilities in one “super campus”.

The education hub covers an area of around 200 hectares, surrounded by over 1,600 hectares of new residential and commercial areas catering to the students and staff alike – all of which are developed by Sime Darby Property Berhad.

The multi-campus township is located just two kilometres off the Pagoh toll plaza on the North-South Expressway, about a 20-minute drive from Muar town. It is expected to bring about spillover benefits to the local community, especially to those living around Pagoh and Panchor.

SHARED FACILITIES

The education hub is equipped with centralised shared facilities, said its Chief Coordinator/Special Projects Section Head Noraida Attan.

These include a convention centre, lecture halls and auditoriums, aquatic centre, sports centre and data centre, among others.She explained that the administration of the education was centralised and run by the Special Section of the Education Ministry’s Development Division for higher education. 

Noraida told Bernama the education hub borrowed from a similar concept introduced in Qatar.

The Qatar Education City and the Science and Technology Park (Qatar Education City) covers 1,400-hectare and houses educational facilities from school age to research level and branch campuses of some of the world's major universities.

Launched in 1997, the initiative by the Qatar Foundation is today a multi-university campus with students from over 50 countries and an impressive array of shared facilities to cater to the community there.

Noraida said the intention behind the development of an education hub as such was to provide shared use of state-of-the-art facilities that would support the progress of higher education in the country.

“This concept of shared facilities not only saves cost but prevents issues of underutilised facilities, such as laboratories.

“For example, if UTHM has the latest Numerical Control (CNC) machine, students from the other three institutions that require the use the machine in their studies can also use it. This eliminates the need to buy multiple units of the same machine,” she explained.

POSITIVE IMPACT

Noraida believed that the concept of shared use of facilities not only saves operation and development costs but teaches students to step outside their comfort zone as well as become more open and less individualistic.

“The students here would not only be among their friends (from the same university or courses) but have the chance to meet and greet with those from other public institutions as well. They can exchange ideas, enrich their socio-cultural experience and better integrate in sports and academics,” she said.

She also believed that they would be able to build a network of friends from diverse academic backgrounds would be helpful for future career development.

Noraida added that in addition to shared use of facilities, there was also a possibility of the institutions ‘sharing’ teaching staff for similar courses in the future as they were experts in their field.

The education hub, opened on May 1 2017, today has around 7,000 students pursuing courses from Diploma to Doctorate level. The figure is expected to increase to about 8,000 students by the year end.

The Education Ministry is hoping to meet the education hub’s maximum capacity of 10,000 students by 2020.

SPILLOVER

Also benefiting from the education hub are the adjacent towns as the number of students and staff would encourage a demand for teaching and learning equipment as well as food and transport services, among others.

The retail options within the township would undoubtedly be vast considering the size of the residential and commercial areas surrounding the campus.

“The Pagoh Education Hub would be providing an economic boost to the local communities with the development of a new township in Pagoh, which was formerly a suburb,” she said.

Noraida believes that the number of investments into Pagoh would also create job opportunities to the local community and promote the development of small and medium industries.

Translated by Sakina Mohamed

-- BERNAMA