Academic Excellence
UTeM is committed to the advancement of teaching and learning and the development of academic excellence across a comprehensive portfolio of academic programmes at the diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate level. The Industrial PhD is regarded as a niche for UTeM in collaboration with the industry in which the candidates conduct their research at their workplace. UTeM’s undergraduate and postgraduate students have in-depth specialization in Engineering, Engineering Technology, Information and Communication Technology and Technology Management. Through the curriculum, UTeM’s students are equipped with knowledge and understanding of real world problems particularly designed to be practical and application oriented. As such, UTeM’s graduates are essentially exposed to industry and business to be highly employable immediately upon graduation or successfully self-employed. The curriculum evolves from a common core of humanities, technopreneurship, mathematics and developed closely with industry experts and professional bodies so as to ensure the quality, standard and relevance meet the needs of the thriving industrial sectors and to produce highly-capable human capital for the development of Malaysia towards a high-income nation by 2020. It is, imperative to integrate teaching with research, making best use of new teaching, learning and information technologies. This is designed to excite UTeM’s students to be creative and innovative and also to equip them with critical thinking, problem solving and the desire to learn and be challenged intellectually. While UTeM provides conventional engineering courses such as Electronic and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Manufacturing Engineering, the University has embarked on a new Engineering Technology course which produces engineering technologists for the competitive market environment. Students with technical and vocational background from polytechnics and community colleges are given the opportunity to obtain their degree in Engineering Technology. Objective measures such as benchmarking with well established international universities and professional organisations are carried out regularly to maintain the international standing of the University. UTeM as a focused university currently has a total of 11,313 students enrolled with yearly enrolment of about 2500 students at diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate levels. These student and graduate enrolment will have attributes important for UTeM to attain the vision of an internationally focused and high-quality university. Students are also given opportunities to study abroad, under UTeM Students’ Mobility Programme, thereby enhancing their unique learning experience internationally. The academic programmes offered through the seven faculties with the strong support of several centres within UTeM will develop excellent engineers and technologist of tomorrow who are independent, critical thinkers with an openness to new ideas, possessing intellectual curiosity and integrity, and a mastery of a body of knowledge and professional skills as well as moulding them to become responsible and effective members of society. Research and Innovation
Research and Innovation in the areas of science and technology are central to the success of UTeM. These two elements are the University’s vital resources and strategic investments for human capital development and capacity building. UTeM has to equip itself to be technologically and intellectually advanced in meeting and supporting the national aspiration of becoming a developed country by the year 2020. The enculturation of positive attitudes towards Research and Innovation through awareness, monitoring, and strategic management programmes at all levels are crucial in creating a climate for invention, innovation and techno-entrepreneurship. In line with the University’s research direction for excellence, UTeM has identified its niche in “Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT)”. AMT involves the use and integration of new innovative technologies to improve products and/or processes. AMT is strengthened by four focus research areas that are linked to outstanding international presence. Excellence in the focus areas identified as Green Technology, Emerging Technology, Systems Engineering and Human-Technology Interaction. In championing focused technology through strategic sharing, UTeM has formed five Centres of Excellence (CoE) known as Advanced Manufacturing Centre (AMC), Centre for Telecommunication Research and Innovation (CeTRI), Centre for Advanced Computing Technology (C-ACT), Centre for Robotic industrial Automation (CERIA) and Centre for Advanced Research on Energy (CARE). The high-performance industrial-linked CoE of UTeM will be acknowledged as TyCoE or Technology-Industry Centre of Excellence, which is an initiative in UTeM to promote excellence in R&D&C. UTeM is also actively participating in exhibition internally and internationally for promoting and marketing its invention and research products. This is to make sure UTeM has double recognition as a technical education provider and an innovative & technology product provider. UTeM places special emphasis on industry relations and community development as a differentiating factor that sets it apart from other public higher education institutions. Industry and Community Network
UTeM has implemented proactive collaborations with the industry, especially amongst Small and Medium Industries (SMIs), the Company Stakeholders (GLCs), Multinational Corporations (MNCs), Government Agencies and Statutory Authorities to create a strategic network for academia-industry relationship. UTeM focuses on several main agenda which involves action strategies in the higher education sector in implementing “business unusual” in order to boost industry involvement in academia. UTeM is committed to foster effective and sustainable partnerships between the academia, industry and community. Through these strong partnerships, UTeM’s students are equipped with adequate industry ready skills to enter a highly competitive market environment. UTeM has embarked on several high impact projects which are aligned to the University’s vision, which include:
• Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP) from the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE)
• Executive Talks from industry CEOs and business experts
• Annual Lecture Series on Entrepreneurship jointly organised with the Faculty of Technology Management and Technopreneurship (FPTT). These invited personalities who are entrepreneurs themselves provide students mentorship, staff attachments in industries and business and hands-on training. To enhance graduate employability, UTeM’s students go through special training under the Graduate Employability Enhancement and Added Value Training (GREAT) programmes. One of the soft skills programmes conducted was Graduate Leadership Assessment and Development programme (GLAD) in collaboration with Deloitte Consulting. For six weeks, final year students develop their soft skills and social skills to prepare them for real working environment. Outreach and engagement with industry have always been a strong priority of UTeM as an impactful effort in establishing pragmatic collaboration such as Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP) working hand in hand with the industry. UTeM coordinates the Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP) via the exchange of creative and innovative ideas, research
findings, experiences and skills between local universities, research organizations, industries, government agencies and the wider community.
