Bridge to foreign education in Malaysia

The Malaysia Education Lead Meet organised by Fast Track Education Services Limited is a yearly event which is set out to enable students to make better plans and informed decisions regarding their higher studies in Malaysia. This year, the event took place at Four Points by Sheraton situated in Gulshan 2 and the event was coordinated by the Managing Director of Fast Track Education Services, Peter Paul D'Costa. 

The two day event was a showcase of the benefits of studying in Malaysia by representatives from the Malaysian campuses of Monash University, The University of Nottingham, Curtin University, Swinburne University, Heriot-Watt University, and INTI International University and Colleges.

The event was inaugurated by Peter Paul D'Costa on behalf of his team at Fast Track Education Services Limited, followed by presentations from the university representatives. There were a lot of aspiring students, curious guardians and inquirers of the programme present in the crowd and they had the chance to have one-on-one discussions with the representatives after the end of the presentations. 

Many students were invited to attend the event while circulars on different newspapers and media outlets had been published to encourage everyone into participating. Students from both A Levels and HSC backgrounds were the primary targeted audience. 

The main focus was however on the representatives from various universities who had come from Malaysia to invite the students in the crowd to persuade higher education in Malaysia. Senior Executive of Marketing and Student Recruitment of Heriot-Watt University, Eddie Siew Chee Choon said, "It is a very good experience for us because our market is very niche so let's say for Bangladesh, when they approach one of our universities it's mostly the good students who come to contact us."

The bridge between Malaysian universities and students from Bangladesh was strengthened because of Fast Track Education Services' relentless efforts as stated by Finance Coordinator and Lecturer of the School of Business in Monash University, Dr. Ravichandran K. Subramaniam. He said, "Fast Track is one of the most aggressive and the biggest interconnecting factors between the Malaysian universities and the student community here. It is doing an excellent job in connecting students with the top institutions. The students are getting firsthand information about what is actually happening, the type of university, the background of the university and the environment they are going to enrol in. The participants of these events are mostly targeted for their academic excellence." 

The students present at the event too had a firm understanding of their expectations with higher education and a student from Loreto School, Shahed Hasan Khandakar, stated, "I want to study in Monash University and pursue an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. It is more affordable than studying in places like Australia, USA or Europe and also because it is close to home so if I ever feel homesick I can come back easily." His mother also included, "There should be more events such as this so that we can learn about more universities and what they offer."

To end we sat down with the brains behind this programme, Peter Paul D'Costa, to discuss whether having more events would be better to generate more interest, to which he said, "We host one programme a year to maintain the quality of the event. Apart from that, the representatives from different universities are very reputable and we have to be conscious of their timing constraints as well." 

Looking at the expectations of the different students and the university representatives it was clear at the end of the event that Fast Track Education Services Limited had truly achieved what they had set out to do - provide driven individuals with a better outlook into their futures with full guidance from the universities they set out to study in.

For further information about future events held by Fast Track Education Services, they can be contacted via their website: www.fteducation-bd.com