KUALA LUMPUR: Three hundred scholarships will be given to Malaysian students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Saudi Arabia this year.
Saudi Arabia ambassador to Malaysia Mahmoud Hussien Saeed Qattan, who announced the scholarships, said the cooperation between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia would strengthen the diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“We have many more universities in Saudi Arabia and we will give more scholarships to Malaysian students for them to pursue their studies in other universities.
“This year the Saudi government has increased the number of scholarship to 300 compared to 100 last year and this will open more opportunity for Malaysian students to study in our country,” he said, at the hi-tea event with Saudi Arabia students in Malaysia held at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Kuala Lumpur today.
Also present was Higher Education minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh.
Idris said it was a good opportunity for Malaysian students to study in Saudi Arabia as the cost of studying in Saudis Arabia is expensive.
But with the scholarship, he added, students would get benefits in terms of medical insurance, free housing, and monthly allowances, covered for their entire duration of studies.
“The relationship with Saudi Arabia has been very warm so with the offering of the scholarship we are looking forward to a better collaboration with Saudis.
“The scholarship offer is immediate as students can now start browsing through their preferred universities in Saudi Arabia and choose their courses. They may then get in touch with the universities themselves,” said Idris.
He added that the actual cost of the scholarship for each student would depend on the structure of fees as it varies for each university.
Idris said this bilateral networking doesn’t just involve the students but also the lecturers. He would like to see a lecturer mobility programme taking place, maybe one semester, or one year, or at least two weeks in the near future so that Malaysian lecturers can experience the ‘heat of Saudi deserts’ and the cultural lifestyle in Saudi Arabia.
The event was organised by Education Malayisa Global Services (EMGS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ministry of Higher Education and Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Attache to strengthen bilateral ties with Saudi Government.
The Saudis students had the opportunity to mingle and network with Idris. They are part of a total of 1,300 students studying in Malaysia.
EMGS is committed in promoting Malaysia as an international education hub and also to thoroughly managing student pass applications to study in Malaysia.
As a 2018 strategy, EMGS has expanded the company’s marketing activities by organising a series of road shows and government-initiated or G2G initiatives in major markets.
With these programmes, EMGS is able to identify the regions in each country with the potential to reach out the quality students.
The service delivery for Visa Approval Letters (VAL) in EMGS Client Charter is 14 working days and in 2016, its average was 19 days and EMGS has seen significant improvement last year with seven working days.
“We have five institutions in the top eight position in ASEAN. We have 11 subjects ranking in the top 50 in the world, and 52 subjects in top 100 (QS World University Rankings 2017).
“Malaysia is the 12th most preferred education destination in the world (UNESCO 2014) and our capital city, Kuala Lumpur has been voted for the third consecutive time as the Most Affordable City for Students based on QS Best Student Cities Survey 2017.
“Clearly, we have a lot to offer citizens of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in tertiary education”, said Idris.
All the students who attended were thrilled with the atmosphere and quality of learning in Malaysia. They also praised EMGS's efforts to emphasise quality in the process of recruitment from start till the end.