Datuk Seri Dr Noraini Ahmad
DURING my student days, I attended classes of educators who gave life to the subjects they teach – so much so that history is not about memorising dates, but it tells us legacies of the past that link to our present.
And mathematics is not merely about numbers, but the foundation of art and design.
As the Minister of Higher Education, I have the pleasure of meeting inspirational higher education educators on a daily basis.
I have realised that they are more than lecturers. They are passionate intellectuals, researchers, innovators, writers, motivators and more.
They have dedicated their lives to shaping the next generation – our nation’s human capital. I believe that they are one of the greatest assets of our country.
Recognising their contribution and in conjunction with World’s Teachers Day introduced by Unesco in 1994, the ministry has proclaimed Oct 5 as Academia Day and October as Academia Month.
This year’s Academia Day celebration will be hosted by MoHE in collaboration with UTM on Oct 5, 2021 (10am). The celebration includes a forum on Digitalisation of Higher Education: Directions and Challenges. Come and join this day of tribute which will be accessible to all on MoHE’s official social media pages.
First celebrated in 2019, this special day honours educators at public and private higher education institutions, polytechnics, community colleges, teachers training institutes, matriculation colleges, as well as technical and vocational training institutes.
The celebration is intended to shed light and appreciate the roles of educators. They indeed wear many hats.
Aside from teaching, our educators conduct research and innovation activities, community and consultancy projects, administrative tasks, etc.
They also shoulder the responsibility of solving societal issues through the establishment of relationships between the government, academia, communities and the industry.
The theme of this year’s Academia Day is Akademia Diperkasa, Digitalisasi Dibudaya, which translates to “Empowerment of Academia, Enculturation of Digitalisation”.
This theme was chosen based on the higher education sector’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic, whereby academia has had to change from face-to-face teaching and learning to open distance learning (ODL).
Understanding the challenges that come with the employment of ODL, the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), together with higher education institutions, telecommunication companies and other corporations have facilitated the transition to ODL by implementing the data plan and device packages initiative for higher education institutions.
Due to the need to leverage digital technology during the pandemic, more than 320,000 data plans and about 9,000 devices have been distributed to students from the B40 community.
To further address the issues pertaining to digitalisation of education, RM50mil has been approved in the 2021 Budget to upgrade the Malaysian Research and Education Network (MyREN). The faster internet connection will ensure that the quality of higher education delivered by our educators is not compromised.
Despite these trying times, many educators have continued to successfully execute their roles as researchers. This year, 19 Malaysian researchers have been recognised for the Highly Cited Researchers 2019 and 2020 award by Clarivate – a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation.
These researchers have also published multiple papers in top tier journals that have been highly cited by other scholars. Their highly cited papers are ranked in the top 1% in the Web of Science (WoS) according to respective fields.
Award recipients consisted of six researchers from Universiti Malaya, three each from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Sains Malaysia, two each from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Sunway University, and one from International Islamic Universiti Malaysia, Monash University and Xiamen University Malaysia each.
Many of our educators have made Malaysia proud on the competitive international stage. Our local higher education institutions are home to winners of the 6th International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada (iCAN) 2021, the Universal Perficio Award and Conference in India (UPACRI) 2021, and more.
Besides quantifiable achievements, educators also bring intangible value to our nation. They facilitate discussions on issues such as moral principles, behavioural decency and civic responsibility – all of which are essential to the development of great societies.
Higher education educators are professionals who serve at tertiary institutions because they want to.
They deeply love the subjects they specialise in and are willing to spend their entire career feeding their passion with new knowledge.
On behalf of MoHE, I would like to wholeheartedly thank higher education educators for their hard work and contributions.
I would also like to congratulate them on all their successes. Their fervour is truly admirable and it doesn’t waiver. May their dedication continue to fuel our nation’s development.
Happy Academia Day 2021!
Datuk Seri Dr NORAINI AHMAD
Minister of Higher Education
