THE university that aims to be a tertiary education centre for all is opening its doors wider to more students.

As Open University Malaysia (OUM) celebrates the achievement of 4,506 students at the diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate levels this weekend and tomorrow, president and vice chancellor Tan Sri Anuwar Ali is looking ahead.

"With this graduating class -- the largest yet -- 13,401 students would have graduated from our courses since we first opened our doors in 2001," he says.

The university is adding 11 more undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to its stable by the beginning of next year.

OUM plans to increase its international student population with the establishment of two new centres -- one in the Maldives, which is already operational with 100 students doing their Bachelor of Education, and another in Hanoi, which is slated to open in January.
Among the graduates are 17 foreign students from Bahrain, Myanmar, India and Indonesia.

The convocation saw the first batch of Master of Education and Master of Multimedia Communication learners receive their scrolls.

The university currently has nearly 35,000 students, including over 500 international students from Yemen, Bahrain, Indonesia, Singapore and the Maldives.