Come to us, says Manyin
KUCHING: The Sarawak Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research is urging students who wish to pursue their education in China to reach out to the ministry for assistance.
Minister Datuk Seri Michael Manyin Jawong says the ministry is currently in the process of submitting a list of names to the Consulate-General of China here.
“…and you might be the first or second (batch) to be sent over to China for further studies, and sponsored by the Chinese universities,” he said, addressing some 250 students.
They were at Sarawak Islamic Information Centre (SIIC) here yesterday for the 1st International Conference on Belt and Road 2020 themed ‘Towards Educational Cooperation and Regional Development’ and Malaysia-Indonesia Study Go China Conference.
Manyin noted that Mandarin would soon be a lingua franca for the world.
“Mandarin is now one of the requirements in job placements, thus we are fortunate today that we are being introduced to universities in China,” he said.
He also welcomed students from China to come over for their studies “because we also have private universities in the state such as Swinburne, Curtin and University College of Technology Sarawak”.
“I urge Chinese universities to appeal to parents…send your students to Sarawak, especially to the three universities in the state,” he said.
Manyin also shared that several years ago, the Sarawak government was thinking of setting up a Chinese university in Miri.
“However, we were informed that it should have a capacity of 20,000 students as a requirement, which is not possible for Sarawak.
“So, I went to China and met the highest-ranking officer in Beijing from the country’s Ministry of Education and proposed to have China fill the 20,000-student placement as they have a surplus of students who cannot get places into (their) universities.
“But at the time, the officer requested us to wait as they have to attend to other issues,” he continued.
Manyin said the proposal was still on and the ministry was pursuing it.
The conference was organised by Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, and facilitated by speakers from Chinese universities such as Ningxia Medical University, Beijing Wuzi University, China Pharmaceutical University, Anhui Medical University and University of Science and Technology of China.
