The MUCED experience: New teaching methods in Malaysia
by One of the elements in MUCED was introducing Malaysian lecturers and students to new teaching methods. This introduction to group work and Problem Based Learning …
Author: Berit Viuf
Malaysian University Consortium for Environment and Development – Industry & Urban Areas
MUCED started activities in 2001, 20 years ago. What do different participants in the programme think of it? Does it have any impact today? Has …
“MUCED should have been more ambitious”, says former MUCED coordinator Randolph S. Jeremiah
In August 2000, MUCED, a consortium of four Malaysian universities, was formed to encourage new interdisciplinary approaches to environmental management. The consortium was part of a project proposed and supported by the DANCED program of the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy. Randolph S. Jeremiah became the Coordinator in the Secretariat of MUCED. In this interview he points to some of the key experiences. Today, Randolph works as Head of Water Resources at ERE, a Malaysian consultant company.
MUCED: Personal development, educational development at universities and practical environmental development in the Malaysian society
One of the first Malaysian students to benefit from the MUCED programme was professor Suhaimi Abdul Talib. In 2001 he went to Denmark to work on his Ph.D. project Anoxic transformations of wastewater organic matter in sewers – process kinetics, model concept and wastewater treatment potential. During two periods of three months, he had his day-to-day work in the laboratories of Institute of Environmental Engineering at Aalborg University.
Director of DUCED, Niels Thygesen: ‘A well-functioning educational sector is the key to development’
‘When it comes to capacity building in higher education systems, it is much harder to show direct evidence of the development effect in society’ says Niels Thygesen, Director of DUCED I&UA almost 20 years ago, ‘the effect of the DUCED/LUCED programme was massive in the targeted countries; the initiatives implemented almost 20 years ago have rubbed off even to this day’.
“I benefitted so much” – experiences from TUCED
In the beginning of the 21st century, the TUCED programme initiated exchange programmes for Danish and Thai master students. To Warisara Sereewatthanachai it meant that she could help bring new methods for substance analysis into the private sector in Thailand.
“We need to spread our knowledge”
Dr. Firdaus Yusoff came to Denmark to study the biofuel process. He left with much more than just academic achievements. The stay in a foreign country sparked his scientific curiosity and convinced him to emphasize that scientists need to serve the public by sharing results and knowledge.
“I want to give back what I learned to our society”
When Dr. Norazana Ibrahim did her Ph.D. project at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), she could confirm that agricultural waste should be an important energy resource in Malaysia. Now comes the difficult part of commercializing the technology in the Malaysian waste management industries.