Asia e University, Malaysia's Contribution To E-Learning In ACD

BANGKOK, Oct 10 (Bernama) -- As a founding member of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), Malaysia has been playing an important role in the 34 member-state regional cooperation framework, especially in the education sector. Malaysia has been pushing hard for affordable and quality e-learning in Asia and after several years of discussion in the ACD, the Kuala Lumpur-based private university Asia e University (AeU) was established in 2007. "Currently, we have about 20,000 students with 20 per cent of them foreigners while the rest are Malaysians," AeU vice-president (Academic and Administration) Prof Dr Mak Chai told Malaysian journalists, here, on Sunday. Met after attending the opening of the ACD Connect Business Forum by Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, he said AeU had been a success with its students from all over the world, beyond ACD's 34 member countries. Chai said that by utilising the latest technology of e-learning, AeU had been able to bring quality higher education to people residing in all parts of the world. "We have students from Somalia, Yemen, Myanmar, Cambodia, Nepal, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and several European countries," he said, adding that with e-learning, students could attend tutorials from the comfort of their living room. The virtual university which has an office in Kuala Lumpur, provides degree, master's and doctorate courses in several fields, as well as short courses. Among the courses offered are Business Management, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Education, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Instead of calling them lecturers, Chai said AeU had 500 "education facilitators" for its students. He said AeU had been effective in helping workers to constantly upgrade their knowledge and skills to be at par with the latest know-how via lifelong learning. "This has enabled the country to upgrade its human resources," he added. --BERNAMA