By Asmahanim Amir
Pix Ikwan Hashim, Shahiddan Saidi, Izwan Azman

BANGI, 1 Sept 2015 – The National University of Malaysia (UKM) has received the highest number of first choice applications from among all the local public institutions.

Vice-Chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Noor Azlan Ghazali said based on a report from the  the Education Ministry’s centralised university unit (UPU), UKM is the university of choice for students when it received about 14,000 admission applications for first choice programmes for the academic year 2015/2016.

 “So we imagine that if the first choice through fourth choice were totalled up, we received about 48,000 applications. This is very competitive. We are very happy and InsyaAllah we will provide the best for our students,” he said to journalists  after visiting freshmen registering for courses at the UKM Bangi Campus here today.

Prof Noor Azlan said for this year’s intake, a total of 4,015 new students were offered places for the 2015/2016 session.

From the amount, 29.41 percent are males while 70.59 percent are females.

“The students were offered places for 69 undergraduate study programmes at 12 faculties which are the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment and Faculty of Law.

“The other faculties are Economics and Management, Education, Islamic Studies and Technology and Information Science,” he said.

He explained that there is a rising trend to choose UKM from among new students.

“ In the 2005/2006 session, we’ve received nearly 5800 undergraduate students. But, over the years, our aim and emphasis as a research University has prompted  us to revise the best composition.

“So now in terms of the composition, we are targeting 50-50 undergraduate and graduate students. Compared with several years ago, the undergraduate students’ intake is a rising trend. Last year it was 3,900 intakes and the year before that, it was 3,500,” he explained.

He said UKM has made a  thorough preparation for student admissions process this year.

“This is the first year since the establishment of UKM we make improvements such as reversing the process. The previous practice was for student registration at the  residential colleges, but now they sign up at faculties and we invite parents and students to visit the faculties.

“Through this, they will get to know better about the faculties, fields of study and also what the faculties have to offer, in the context of history, famous scholars and the learning in UKM,” he stated.

He clarified that for this registration session, students did not have to queue up because all the registration process had been shortened as the relevant  information about new students had already been obtained.

“We want all who come to UKM today including the parents when they return later, to be proud of UKM, in addition, we have just celebrated National Day 2015,” he said.

Prof Noor Azlan said UKM has restructured the orientation programme in which the freshmen would meet lecturers who will teach first year students.

“All the lecturers have already met and they discussed how to accept these students and what is presented on the first day of study, which are  what are UKM’s expectations of these students so that they understand that learning is much more than just fulfilling academic requirements.

“So we know that study programmes offered have their respective education structure. We want students to have more knowledge, we want them to be more experienced, the formation of moral character and also mindsets they can receive from the programmes that we do,” he said.

He explained, that in the orientation week Minggu Mesra Mahasiswa (3M), there is a UKM Got Talent programme to foster student innovation.

“We want to convey this message from the outset that these students must have a creative nature, innovative, entrepreneurial and ready to take the challenge,” he added.

He stated that the  I Love UKM programme will also show new students the  campus in the context of infrastructure facilities including laboratories, the UKM forest reserve and the Menagerie.