KUALA LUMPUR, Wednesday 4 August 2004 - An administrative head of a private university applauds the Higher Education Ministry’s move to provide all public university students with laptops to assist in teaching and learning at the tertiary level. 

Vice President of UCSI (University College Sedaya International), Associate Professor Daniel Quah, who had turned the UCSI campus into a wireless campus said the future depends on the younger generation being IT-savvy.

“I have seen the future, and the future is wireless,” he said. “With the wireless facilities, our students are able to access the Internet from any corner of our campus in Taman Connaught, Cheras.”

Since last year, UCSI had initiated a Notebook Ownership scheme where every new student is given special subsidies to own a laptop when they enroll with UCSI. 

Quah was responding to Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh who had earlier said that the Ministry had put together a proposal to provide new students with laptops and have the cost deducted from their National Higher Education Fund Corporation (NHEFC) loans and scholarships. 

Datuk Dr Shafie had said that many students were now using their initial NHEFC payment of RM1,500, meant for books and other material, to purchase cellular phones. The Ministry had proposed to give every university student a laptop instead.

The move was part of the Ministry’s efforts to improve the infrastructure at public universities to ensure a high level of connectivity.