By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Foto Ikhwan Hashim

PUTRAJAYA, 15 August 2015 – The National University of Malaysia (UKM) has won four awards from the 16 categories in competition at the University Community  Transformation Centre (UCTC) Appreciation night.

UKM came out tops in the categories of non-governmental organisations (NGO), Community, Government Agencies and Health at the presentation ceremony held here, today.

The UCTC is one of the programmes under the National Blue Ocean Strategy  which is coordinated by the Ministry of Education to foster community engagement between universities and the public.

UKM’s project of Malaysian Advocate for Cerebral Palsy (Dr Sazlina Kamaralzaman)  clinched the winner for the NGO category , while the conservation of fireflies at kampung Dew in Perak (Assoc Prof Norela Bt Sulaiman) as a tourist attraction won in the Community category.

In the government agency category, UKM garnered the top prize with its Homestay programme (Assoc Prof Dr Norngainy Mohd Tawil) in the state of Kelantan, while in Health the project to train pre-school teachers in rural areas to screen pupils for visual weaknesses (Assoc Prof Datuk Dr Rokiah Omar) got the top prize.

However, the lion’s share of the honours went to Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) with six prizes, including Overall Excellence project.

The awards night was  officiated by Higher Education Secretary General, Dato Seri Ir  Dr Zaini Ujang.

Also present were Deputy Chief Secretary of the ministry, Dato’ Nasir bin  Mat Dam and Chairman of the 2015 UCTC Appreciation Awards Council, Prof Dr Imran Ho Abdullah, who is UKM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Industry and Community Partnerships),.

The UCTC Appreciation Awards was held in conjunction with the  Malaysian Higher Education Week 2015 and gave recognition to outstanding community programs in applying the principles of the National Blue Ocean Strategy that is, the minimum cost, Implementation quick, high-impact and sustainable.

A total of 16 categories, involving 186 projects, namely, Edu Tourism, ICT and Technology, Social Welfare, Health, Entrepreneurship, Culture and National Heritage Preserve, Development Environment, Education, Risk Management and Disaster, Sports and Recreation, UCTC-RTC, Government Agencies , Corporate Industry, Community, NGOs and Students Association.