SINTOK: Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) today became the first public university in the country to ink a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Standards Malaysia to introduce courses in the standardisation and innovation management field.
The collaboration shall pave the way to introduce new academic courses pertaining to standardisation and industry-oriented Research and Development (R&D), besides industrial training.
UUM Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak signed the MoU on behalf of the university while Standards Malaysia was represented by its director-general Datuk Fadilah Baharin.
Prof Mohamed in a statement said the collaboration was aimed to create awareness on the importance of standardisation and producing future young experts in the field.
"On top of that, the standardisation field will also create future job opportunities while further promoting the culture of quality which set to improve institutional product and service trustworthy
"The MoU is in line with the National Standards and Strategy Action Plan (NSSA) five strategies approved by the Cabinet in October 2004 which outlined the importance of standard compliance," he said.
He added that the 2013 National Standard Compliance Programme (NSCP) report revealed that up to 65 per cent of small and medium-scale enterprises had failed to comply with the standard due lack of awareness and lack of demand for products which complied to the standard.