Sunday April 30, 2006
Foreign leader impressed by education approach
LIMKOKWING University College’s “avant garde approach to education” has impressed St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph E. Gonsalves so much that he has decided to send his students to Malaysia.
“Your university has taken me by surprise. You have taken a practical yet avant garde approach to education,” he said after he was taken on a tour of the campus by the university college’s president Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing.
Dr Gonsalves found out more about the university’s industry-within-university concept, touring such facilities as the National Branding and Packaging Design Centre.
“I will persuade my colleagues in the Caribbean region to send students to Limkokwing to study. I am confident our young will benefit from the experience,” he said, adding that the Caribbean island nations are in the process of becoming a federation.
He said his country needed to break out from the cocoon as “we are still somewhat imprisoned by the ethos of an old world.”
“Malaysia is one of the countries that small and developing countries have to get close to,” he said.
Dr Gonsalves accepted Lim’s invitation to be a visiting professor and plans to spend some time giving lectures at the university college this year.
He, in turn, has invited Lim to be a member of his country’s Global Advisory Board.
Lim said Limkokwing would also consider other forms of support, including transfer of technology.
“We discussed how we could lend support to his government in such areas as promotion of tourism and trade,” said Lim.
St Vincent and the Grenadines, a country made up of more than 30 islands, has agriculture as its biggest economic activity, followed by a dynamic tourism industry, and an offshore financial centre that is growing rapidly. It is fast moving into a service economy.
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