KUALA LUMPUR, Friday 14 May 2004 - The UCSI Edu-Van, the first of its kind by an institution of higher learning, is a purpose-built van specially designed to promote and create interest in higher education among secondary school students. 

According to UCSI’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Chin Peng Kit, the van will be making regular visits to secondary schools. 

“The UCSI Edu-Van is our means to bridge the gap between secondary and tertiary education,” he said. “We will be actively promoting a number of interesting subjects to arouse interest amongst secondary school students and make them enquire more about various career options.” 

The soft-launch held on Friday 14 May at Sekolah Sri Sedaya in Subang Jaya, for example, was mainly to promote Multimedia. “Our School of IT has put together some very interesting programmes for the young people,” he said. “They will have an opportunity to try their hands on some multimedia games.” 

The Happenings “Edu-jays” (short for educational deejays) were Elaine Chong and Koh Hong Seng, both students with the School of IT. 

“We really enjoyed ourselves,” said Chong. “It is fun to interact with the young people, and that makes me feel young again.” 

Some of younger primary school students were especially attracted to the Multimedia games created by second year IT students at UCSI. 

Packet Marigold drinks along with Gimme 5 Chocolates were distributed to students besides The Life Explorer magazine and DoctorJob GTI Publisher’s A-Z of Courses Explained. 

A student placement company, Intellect-Asia also sponsored the Lucky draw prize for students. 

“We are looking for more sponsors,” he said. “We hope sponsors will approach us with their freebies.” 

The soft-launch at Sekolah Sri Sedaya on Friday 14 May also saw the presence of Hitz.fm Cruisers at Sekolah Sri Sedaya. 

Chin added that some interesting themes are already in the pipeline for different months of the year. Among others, they include Multimedia Month, Pharmacy Month, Biotechnology Month. 

“We hope to continue to build our rapport with the schools,” he said. “These days, institutions of higher learning have to be more student-friendly.”