GEORGE TOWN: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has reached an agreement with London-based Educational Competencies Consortium (ECC) to offer human capital development programmes.
The strategic partnership, which is the first carried out by ECC with an agency outside England, will be conducted by USM’s Centre for Innovation and Productivity in Public Administration (PIPPA).
USM’s vice chancellor Prof Datuk Omar Osman said it was an honour for USM to be chosen for ECC’s first international partnership.
He said through the partnership, the university would offer training programmes using a competency-based model called higher education roles analysis (HERA) that has been developed and utilised by leading universities in England.
“In the course of this collaboration, participants will be exposed to the competency framework and its implementation techniques.
“The first training course will be held in May this year with another three slated to take place next year and run by ECC in the United Kingdom,” he said.
He said USM and ECC have also agreed to work on a new collaborative competency-based programme called the ASEAN higher education role analysis, which will be the combination of ECC expertise and USM experience in training members of higher education institution.
“From the collaboration we hope to develop a very good competency-based higher education sector in this region,” he said, adding that this would be in conjunction with the ASEAN Economic Cooperation that will be launched this year.
Omar said the collaboration was also a move forward for USM from science and technology research and development to human resource development.
Also present during the press conference were USM Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Professor Datuk Muhammad Jantan, Senior Consultant of ECC Sandra Walton and its CEO Nicholas Johnston.