From Classrooms to Conversations: NDMU Engages UiTM on Curriculum, Research, and the Future of Collaboration

The NDMU delegation visited University Teknologi - MARA (UiTM) last April 16 and was welcomed at UiTM’s Faculty of Accountancy by Prof. Dr. Norli Ali, Dean of the Faculty, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Norziaton Ismail Khan CPA (Aust), AM (M), Head of Postgraduate Studies, along with other administrators. The reception underscored UiTM’s culture of academic openness and its eagerness to engage with partner institutions from the ASEAN region.

UiTM is no ordinary institution. As one of the largest universities in Southeast Asia by enrollment, it carries significant weight in the region’s academic landscape. Being welcomed by the Faculty of Accountancy’s top leadership offered the NDMU group a close-up view of how a large-scale public university structures its postgraduate ecosystem.

Prof. Dr. Norli Ali opened the academic exchange with a broad overview of UiTM, its institutional character, and its standing within Malaysia’s higher education system. Building on this, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Norziaton Ismail Khan zoomed in on the specifics: programme curriculum structure, modes of academic delivery, and the policies and procedures that govern research at the postgraduate level. The presentation was detailed and practice-oriented, offering NDMU’s PhD students a rare comparative lens on how research is nurtured and managed in a leading Malaysian university. In turn, Dr. Juvy Reyes spoke about NDMU’s profile with emphasis on the Graduate School and its flagship doctoral programmes. The moment was telling — two institutions, geographically distant but intellectually aligned, finding common ground in their shared commitment to advancing graduate education.

Perhaps the most forward-looking aspect of the UiTM visit was the open discussion on potential areas of collaboration between the two universities. The conversation at UiTM ventured into concrete possibilities — the kind of dialogue that plants seeds for future academic partnerships or joint research initiatives.

For the PhD students in attendance, this was an instructive lesson beyond the syllabus: witnessing how institutions negotiate the terms of collaboration, articulate their strengths, and find the intersections where partnership makes the most sense. It was, in many ways, educational management in action.

As NDMU’s Malaysia engagement series drew closer to its conclusion, the UiTM visit stood out for its reciprocity and its promise. The conversations started here are ones that both institutions will carry forward — with the hope that today’s exchange of ideas becomes tomorrow’s shared academic endeavor.