KUALA LUMPUR (Kyodo) -- The University of Tsukuba officially opened a campus in Kuala Lumpur on Monday with 13 students, becoming the first Japanese university to establish an overseas branch that grants degrees.
The university's new department known as the "School of Transdisciplinary Science and Design," offering a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree under a four-year curriculum, welcomed seven Malaysian and six Japanese students as its first batch of students.
Malaysian Higher Education Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir said in a speech at the launch ceremony of the campus that his country is "honored" to host the campus and expressed "hope that Malaysia will continue to be a strategic investment destination for Japanese businesses and higher education institutions."
Malaysia began encouraging Japanese universities to establish overseas branches in the country in 2018 under then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Known for his "Look East Policy" during his first tenure from 1981 to 2003, Mahathir aimed to use postwar Japan as a development model.
Mahathir had hoped that a Japanese university in the country would enable Malaysian students and those in other Southeast Asian countries to have access to a Japanese education at a much lower cost.
Classes will be conducted in both English and Japanese, with the Japanese language as a required subject, and courses on data science and environmental sciences among those offered, according to the university based in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo.
Student admissions to the new department will be capped at 40, and around 40 faculty members from the university will be dispatched to the campus.
The campus is currently located within the premises of the University of Malaya, the country's top university.
Kyosuke Nagata, president of the University of Tsukuba, said at the ceremony that he envisions that the campus will "develop individuals with data science literacy who can apply ideas and technologies from the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences to a broad range of global issues."
