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| Bilateral Relations ＞ Visit to Malaysia by Japanese Education Minister |
Visit to Malaysia by Japanese Education Minister |
| 7 May 2014 |
The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan Hakubun Shimomura was here in Malaysia for an official visit from the 4th (Sunday) to 6th of May (Tuesday). Below is the outline of his visit. 1.Main events (5th of May) (1)Courtesy call on former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (2)Ministerial meeting with Youth & Sports Minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin (3)Ministerial meeting with Deputy Education Minister YB Kamalanathan (4)Meeting with the Science Advisor to the Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Zakri Abdul Hamid (5)Visit to Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT) (6)Get-together with former students who studied in Japan (ALEPS & JAGAM) (7)Meeting with Japanese educators in Kuala Lumpur 2.Outline & outcome (1)Courtesy call on former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad Minister Shimomura noted that in recent years, the entire Japanese nation had regressed due to Japan’s stagnant economy. The Abe administration has since implemented policies to ensure Japan becomes an attractive country to countries like Malaysia which has the Look East Policy. He stated his opinion on ways to attract “Japanese-style” universities to Malaysia whereby apart from educational content, Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking could also be conveyed through the Japanese language. Furthermore, views regarding the importance of human resource development cooperation and interactions to lead Asian countries in global peace but centering on ASEAN were conveyed as well. (2)Ministerial meeting with Youth & Sports Minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin During Minister Shimomura’s meeting with Minister Khairy, he introduced the “Sport for Tomorrow”, an event put forward for Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, whereby more than 10 million people over a hundred nations including ASEAN countries will have people-to-people exchanges and human resources development assistance. Minister Khairy expressed his keen interest on this and said he would definitely love to participate. On a separate note on youth exchange, Minister Shimomura called for participation in the “World Scout Jamboree” scheduled for 2015. He suggested that Boy Scouts activities could be a basis for future bilateral exchange. (3)Ministerial meeting with Deputy Education Minister YB Kamalanathan Minister Shimomura had a meeting with Deputy Minister Kamalanathan. During the meeting, both shared the recognition and success of the Japan study program based on the Look East Policy. They identified student exchange programs and the internationalisation of universities as means to promote bilateral exchanges of higher education. (4)Meeting with the Science Advisor to Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Zakri Abdul Hamid Minister Shimomura had a meeting with Science Advisor Dato’ Sri Zakri. Both recognised the importance for cooperation on international science and technology / innovation for continuous global development. Meanwhile both also acknowledged that the direction for science and technology cooperation was through extensive people-to-people exchange, ranging from youths to prominent researchers. (5)Visit to MJIIT Minister Shimomura visited MJIIT which is located in the UTM KL campus. MJIIT is the culmination of Malaysia’s Look East Policy, and is also the biggest education project between Malaysia and Japan. Japan has formed a consortium of universities and has started dispatching teachers here. During the meeting, Professor Dr. Hamdani Saidi, Director of UTM International Campus, and Professor Datin Rubiyah Yusof, Dean of MJIIT, explained that MJIIT planned to expand the interaction between Japan and Malaysia by dispatching more exchange students to Japan, setting up training programmes at Japanese companies, and cooperating with Japanese universities. Minister Shimomura pointed out that in order to expand the internationalisation of Japanese universities and interaction among students abroad, it is essential to push for further cooperation with Japanese universities. The Minister also hoped that the project would be one of the major ways to contribute towards enhancing bilateral relations. Later during his visit to MJIIT, he joined some lectures on campus and visited the Marzuki Khalid Industry Museum. He was also briefed on research projects by the Japanese professors and students at MJIIT. (6)Get-together with former students who studied in Japan (ALEPS & JAGAM) Minister Shimomura had a chat with the leaders of the alumni associations for students who used to study abroad in Japan (ALEPS and JAGAM). They had an exchange of views regarding the possibility of setting up Japanese universities in Malaysia with the Japanese language as the medium of instruction. (7)Meeting with Japanese educators in Kuala Lumpur Minister Shimomura held talks with the Japanese teachers’ facilitator for AAJ in University of Malaya Professor Watanabe, Deputy Director for MJIIT Professor Yamamoto and Kuala Lumpur Japanese School Headmaster Nakamura. Minister Shimomura was briefed on certain local educational issues, and encouraged each of them to further enhance and develop their institutions’ educational activities locally.   Courtesy
call on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad
Ministerial meeting with Youth & Sports
Minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin   Ministerial
meeting with Deputy Education Minister
Meeting with
the Science Advisor to the Prime Minister
YB Kamalanathan Dato’ Sri Zakri Abdul Hamid   Visit
to MJIIT
Get-together with ALEPS & JAGAM |
