【SOUTHBOUND ACADEMIC COLLABORATION WITH UTAR, MALAYSIA】

by Annie Liu

On October, both the Principle Investigator and the Co-Principle Investigator of the SUZAKU PIONEER Project, Profeesor Lin and Professor Lee, southbound to Malaysia to join the oversea academic collaboration of rural education with UTAR. 

During the visitation, the team travel to New villages in Malaysia, which also known as Chinese new villages represent a type of settlement that is unique to Peninsular Malaysia. New villages in Malaysia were formed mainly during the Malayan emergency period (1948-1952) in order to segregate the villagers from supplying any resources to the Malayan Communist Party. To date, there are total 613 new villages and fishing villages in Malaysia. However, most of these villages are ageing and there is a lack of job opportunities for the villagers, as well as deficiency of education resources for children. Aware of this issue, UTAR decided to take up the challenge. They initiated a project called the 'New Village Community Project' in 2009 which aims to create opportunities for students to mingle, interact and work with the new village communities and to create meaningful social exchanges, whilst contributing to the economic growth and educational development of the new villages. The project significantly accentuates the university social responsibility of UTAR, and shows great resemblance to SUZAKU PIONEER Project in the dedication of rural education.

With the introduction of the UTAR members, SUZAKU PIONEER delegation entered the new villages, the Datuk Harun C Serendah New Village and Tronoh Mines, to visit the schools and exchanged expirences with local educators. Principle of 'Datuk Harun C Serendah New Village-SRJKC Serendah' shared their successful collaboration with local communities and the journey of school managing during the challenging days. In addition, the principle of 'SJKC SIN MIN TRONOH MINES', a small school with only 20 to 30 students in the campus, metioned their experimental teaching strategy with its minor student amounts. In remarks, Professor Lee cautioned that the teaching strategy of 'SJKC SIN MIN TRONOH MINES' showed similarity with Taiwan's Mixed-Ability classroom and subsequently shared the Taiwanese experience in small school teaching.

Visiting not only the new villages, but also the Westlake International School, which was qualified by Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE), to discuss the further collaboration between bothside on oversea exchange activities. Overall, SUZAKU PIONEER Project obtained significant progress in the partnership with UTAR and looking forward to the coming cooperation in nearly days.