3rd December, Johor Bahru: The University was audited on the PSPTN Critical Agenda Project (CAP) carried out by the Ministry of Education. The audit was held at the Deans Meeting Room in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering (FBME) chaired by iPMO head, the former Director of UTM Office of Corporate Affairs, Prof. Dr. Azlan Abdul Rahman now the DVC (Development). Present too was the national Internationalization CAP head, Prof. Dr. Mohd Ismail Abd. Aziz, UTMs DVC (Student Affairs and Alumni). The PSPTN audit panel present are Puan Noranyza Mohd Yusoff as Head of the Audit team, En. Muhd Radhi Hamzah, and Encik Azizi Ismail.
The PSPTN audit was conducted to verify year end CAP achievements specifically checking on CAP KPI performance based on the targets set, the University’s understanding of CAP KPI operational definitions, and identifying other issues related to the implementation of PSPTN in UTM. The audit process was carried out towards 11 CAP identified by the PSPTN audit panel namely Academia, E-learning, Entrepreneurship, Holistic Student Development, Industry and Academia, Internationalization, Knowledge Transfer Programme, Learning and Teaching, Lifelong learning, Mybrain15, and Research and Development.
Results indicated a stronger drive and focus to be channeled across UTM Knowledge Transfer Grants (KTP) as UTM has always been a major contributor to the country’s research and innovation in Science and Technology. The University was urged to leverage on UTM’s expertise in diverse fields through the newly established University Community Transformation Centre (UCTC) to bring impactful sustainable livelihood on societies. This was deemed to be the centre of discussion. The audit panel mentioned that UTM has done extensively well on research and innovation through UTM’s RMC, followed by commercializing efforts through ICC, and finally, UCTC should play a role in ensuring the innovations UTM produced is delivered and impacting on the communities, locally and internationally.
UTM was applauded in the following five best practices:
1. 5 Excellence Track programmes for Entrepreneurship CAP
2. Tekun Masuk Kampus for Entrepreneurship CAP
3. MyAgrosis Agriculture Programme for Entrepreneurship CAP
4. Job Creation for Entrepreneurship CAP
5. Community Collaborative Innovative Capacity Building in Community Engagement on International Students for Internationalization CAP
Overall outcomes revealed many strong good practices made by UTM on the entrepreneurial track to develop students with innovative entrepreneurial mindset. This highlights a way forward for UTM based on the University KAI “enhanced entrepreneurial ecosystem” in developing a variety of student development opportunities such as job creation, leadership, ETP tracks, start-up business opportunities, community engagement challenges for the purpose of developing more creative and skilled graduates, hence contributing to the nation wealth creation.
The PSPTN audit is an important approach to ensure the national higher education targets can be achieved and issues of implementation can be effectively improved. All CAP plays a pertinent role in ensuring implementation targets are equally distributed to higher education institutions across Malaysia.
