Official Launch of Limkokwing University London
A new model UniversityProfessor Dr Michael Thorne As Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University, I am delighted to have been asked to speak at this immensely prestigious event on behalf of all of Limkokwing University’s UK partner universities. Across the world, inspirational university leaders are in very short supply. From my very first visit to Limkokwing in KL it was clear that at its helm is an amazing brain, namely that of Professor Tan Sri Limkokwing. He has inspired change in his university, his own country and in many other countries. Few university presidents can claim to have done half that. We in the UK partner universities have been working hard to be part of Tan Sri’s inspirational vision. We are therefore absolutely delighted that Limkokwing University has now established a campus here in London. Of course, as part of the grand vision, it must be in one of London’s most beautiful buildings! We hope that this campus will open up access to greater educational opportunities for Malaysian students and for students from other countries to continue their higher education here in the UK.
But this campus will also support our shared vision to transform university education and to take that vision of transformation around the world. We are all excited by the opportunity to be working so closely with such an inspirational university as Limkokwing which, in our view, has been a leading light in Asia for many years. It has achieved so much in so short a time. Already, it has gained international recognition as a model new university, innovative, distinctive and excelling at what it does. And I say that, Prime Minister, having personally written and spoken so much in the UK about the lead which the whole private higher education sector has given to university education in Malaysia and about your government’s inspired approach to encouraging students from overseas to come and study in your most delightful country.
By setting up its campus in London, I am confident Limkokwing University will prompt further change in British educational institutions as we continue to reinvent ourselves and become more relevant to today’s world. This is a time of enormous change for universities globally. We are quite rightly under pressure to deliver the skills that are increasingly demanded by governments and business as countries seek to take on the challenges and competition created by globalisation. In my view, Limkokwing University, with its internationally acknowledged experience in delivering skills-driven programmes, can confidently be expected to make a strong contribution to the British education sector.
As you know and as is clear from the branding of the campus in KL – where even the lift is in the corporate colour black – Limkokwing University has never followed the traditional rules in providing education. It breaks norms. It continues to pioneer new ways of delivering and acquiring knowledge. We cannot but admire the inventiveness and sheer audacity of Limkokwing University in taking an idea that many have dreamed about – The Global Classroom – and turning it into an affordable reality for people across the world.
Students graduating from The Global Classroom will be imbued with the best of Western and Eastern traditions and philosophies, thus equipping them for future international careers. This will be achieved by enabling them, as part of their degree programme to broaden their cultural and intellectual experience by studying and travelling throughout a network of campuses spread across continents – at the present moment, three of them. Limkokwing University and all the British universities in the partnership have many shared values, not least in that we all are determined and ambitious institutions aiming to make our mark on the world’s stage. We are all in full agreement with the new vision of globalised education promoted by Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Limkokwing that aims to build bridges between the East and the West. We will begin that task by building on the extensive and exciting collaboration between Malaysia and British educational institutions. By working together British and Malaysian institutions will increasingly be able to offer innovative pathways which merge the best of Eastern and Western education to meet the needs of the world today. We are jointly going to develop this idea to the full because we believe that is what we need to do to fulfil the needs of our governments and all our other stakeholders.
Prime Minister, Limkokwing University’s philosophy in wishing to create a Global University is not in itself new. What IS new is that Limkokwing University is making it happen. I therefore believe it is fitting that you have graced this occasion with your presence. Malaysia is yet again leading the world’s universities in new directions and in the a way that I believe will make the world a better place, with people valuing and understanding difference rather than seeing it as a threat, never mind the contribution to the global economy. |
