UMS: Three decades of excellence in Sabah's higher education and counting

KOTA KINABALU - Over the past three decades, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) has played a pivotal role in advancing higher education in Sabah, particularly by ensuring that children from rural areas and the B40 income group have access to university-level education.

Established on November 24, 1994, UMS has achieved remarkable milestones, including publishing hundreds of high-impact journals and producing groundbreaking innovations and research with some of this work being incorporated into government policies, contributing significantly to Malaysia’s development, especially in Sabah.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Mansor highlighted UMS’s growth, noting that it started with just 205 students from across Malaysia in 1995.

Today, UMS enrols nearly 5,000 students annually, offers programmes through 13 faculties, and is planning to introduce two new majors, architecture and law, he said.

Kasim, who has been with UMS for nearly 25 years and was appointed Vice-Chancellor in 2022, expressed his gratitude for the university’s achievements, including producing over 91,000 graduates, 60 per cent of whom are Sabahans.

“We are grateful for the establishment of UMS, which is the ninth public university. It is a blessing for Sabah and its people. It enables us to provide quality education, particularly for children from the B40 group,” he told Bernama.

Before the establishment of UMS 30 years ago, Kasim said children from Sabah, particularly those from rural areas, had to migrate to Peninsular Malaysia to pursue higher education at public universities such as Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Malaya (UM), and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

However, he said, poverty and financial constraints forced many eligible students to abandon their aspirations of attending university.

“Forget about going to Kuala Lumpur—there were children living in remote parts of Sabah who, at that time, had never even set foot in Kota Kinabalu, let alone dreamt of flying to Kuala Lumpur, Penang, or Johor.

“Alhamdulillah, in 1994 the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of the main campus was held and by 1995, when the university became operational, a new era began. UMS has since played a transformative role in advancing education for the children of Sabah," he said.

Besides producing highly skilled, competent, and expert human capital to meet the demands of the public and private sectors, Kasim said, UMS has also produced many successful entrepreneurs.

For the record, the USM graduate employability rate increased from 54.7 per cent in 2014 to 98.5 per cent in 2023.

Over three decades as a knowledge centre, Kasim said UMS also served as a "thinker" that catalysed social and economic development in Sabah through efforts to empower rural communities by implementing various knowledge transfer programmes.

This includes helping rural communities in the field of entrepreneurship as well as further expanding the marketing network of their products and services, he said.

He said studies on poverty eradication in Sabah were also carried out, among other things, involving the study of community thought patterns, the causes of poverty and efforts to improve the people's socioeconomics, with all the outcomes of the studies recommended to implementing agencies.

Not only that, he said, UMS students were also exposed to various social activities to open their minds, thus injecting the spirit among Sabah's rural children about the importance of education as a sustainable medium to get them out of the vicious circle of poverty.

Commenting on UMS' achievements over the past 30 years, Kasim said there were numerous, among them were the registration of its academic research for intellectual property protection and the production of high-quality research and journals that have garnered both national and international recognition.

Citing UMS’ agriculture and forestry programmes, he said they were ranked among the top 200 in the world.

"UMS students also represented Malaysia on the global stage, further elevating the university’s reputation internationally," he added.

Kasim emphasised that innovation should remain a key focus for all UMS academics—not only in teaching and learning but also in producing impactful research outcomes.

He said UMS research laboratories extend beyond its campus, encompassing the diverse seas and landscapes of Sabah, which boasts some of the world’s richest biodiversity.

“Research and innovation must be pursued so that their outcomes can be commercialised for the benefit of the people and the development of Sabah,” he said.

He said that over the past 30 years, many innovations have been developed and recommended.

"Insya Allah, we will continue to undertake more efforts to translate these innovations into impactful realities,” he added and expressed his hope that studies and innovations produced by UMS will go beyond being displayed in libraries.

Regarding the recently concluded 26th UMS Convocation Ceremony, Kasim said, a new history of the university was created when a total of 119 graduates received the Doctor of Philosophy Degrees, the highest number ever recorded.

He said 426 graduates obtained first-class honours and 90 graduated in medicine.

"Next year, the UMS Hospital will be ready. This is also an advantage for the university. I have discussed with the Ministry of Higher Education (KPT) that the intake of students for the Faculty of Medicine (UMS) will be increased from the current maximum of only 90 to 150.

"This is to meet the needs of medical doctors in government hospitals in Sabah as we know that Sabah still lacks medical doctors.

"Insya Allah, with the existence of UMS Hospital, it will help deal with the problem of shortage of medical doctors," he said.

Kasim said he also hoped to see UMS introducing new programmes to meet the demands of the job market in the future, including in the fields of architecture and law.

Currently, UMS is in a smart collaboration with Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to bring architecture majors to UMS, with the first intake expected to be in September next year, he said.

He also hoped that more international students would make UMS their choice of pursuing higher studies.

In the text of his Perdana lecture last Thursday, Kasim said UMS now has nearly 18,000 students, including 648 overseas students. - BERNAMA