Network gives fresh impetus to efforts to embed Advance HE Fellowship across Malaysia’s higher education sector

A new network launched for Advance HE Senior Fellows in Malaysia is spearheading efforts to boost the number of higher education professionals in the country with Fellowship status.

A working group of the new Malaysia Senior Fellows Network, with their newly appointed Chair Annyza Tumar from Sunway University and Deputy Chair Jaya Kumar from University of Nottingham Malaysia, will meet on September 22 and will agree an early action plan to address key challenges for the country’s institutions and develop Fellowship pathways.

In November, the full membership of the network will meet in person in Kuala Lumpur to discuss capacity building of Fellowship in Malaysia and the support Advance HE can offer institutions to achieve their ambitions and priorities.

Working group

Members of the Senior Fellows Network working group are:

Back row, from left to right: 

Zhiyuan Chen,  Head of School of Computer Science (Associate Professor) University of Nottingham

Carrie Ho,  Senior Lecturer, Programme Coordinator (Civil & Construction Engineering) Curtin University

Caroline Yap Yu Li, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Sunway Business School Sunway University

Arual Dewi P Arunasalam, Assistant Professor, Edinburgh Business School Heriot-Watt University

Kai Li Chung, Associate Professor, Head of Psychology University of Reading

Joanna Matthan, Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of Education Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia.

Front row from left to right are:

Kay Hack, Advance HE

Jaya Kumar Karunagharan, Director of Nottingham Recognition Scheme (UNM), Head of Foundation in Science (Assistant Professor) University of Nottingham and working group Deputy Chair.

Annyza Tumar,  Head of Academic Enhancement Division Sunway University and working group Chair, and 

Dan Sheratte, Advance HE.

300 Malaysian Fellows

“Malaysian higher education institutions are embracing Advance HE Fellowship as a globally-recognised acknowledgement of excellent teaching practice,” said Advance HE’s International Partnerships Manager Daniel Sheratte.

“The country now has more than 300 Fellows and is in the top ten countries worldwide for the number of Fellows it has. In fact, Malaysia saw more than 30 of its higher education professionals achieve Senior Fellow status in the last 18 months alone – which is a powerful signal of its determination to embrace the accreditation and champion the best possible teaching and learning practice.”

Commitment to professionalism

The Fellowship scheme is a globally-recognised marker of commitment to professionalism and a recognition of practice, impact and leadership in teaching and learning. Across the world, there are 170,000 Fellows across four categories. These are:

Associate Fellow -  For those fairly new to a role in teaching and/or support for learning.

Fellow - For those from a wide variety of different contexts whose practice with learners has ‘breadth and depth’.

Senior Fellow – For those who lead and influence academic practice and higher education learning in a many different settings.

Principal Fellow – For those who demonstrate a sustained record of effectiveness in strategic leadership of high quality learning; and can show that their leadership has had extensive impact.

The Malaysia Senior Fellowship Network was launched at a special event at Sunway University last month, attended by Dan Sheratte and Kay Hack from Advance HE, both pictured above.

Networking with Malaysian universities

While in the region, they visited the British Council in Singapore and Malaysia, the British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce and a range of universities including:

• James Cooke University, where they met May Tan-Mullins, Chief Sustainability Officer / Dean International and Caroline Wong, Associate Dean Learning and Teaching.
• Nanyang Technical University where they visited Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and met with Preman Rajalingam, Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Pedagogy and Jessica Ang,  Assistant Director, Educational Development.
• University of Nottingham, Malaysia, where Kay delivered a session on Education for Sustainable Development and were hosted by Jaya Kumar Karunagharan, Director of Nottingham Recognition Scheme and Hazel Ramos, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning
• Curtin University, where Dan delivered a presentation on Fellowship and met with Pro-Vice Chancellor and President Simon Luenig and Tang Fu Ee, Dean of Learning and Teaching
• Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia where Dan met with Joanna Matthan: Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of Education