PL F b o o k l au n c h
Tun Siti Hasmah launches
“Women Leaders in Malaysian
Academia”
To recognise the women Chancellors,
Pro-Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors of
Malaysian public and private universities
since Independence, Perdana Leadership Foundation and Multimedia University (MMU) have published “Women
Leaders in Malaysian Academia”, a
coffee-table book that features the
biographies of the women along with
their speeches. Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Haji
Mohd Ali, the wife of the fourth Prime
Minister of Malaysia, launched the publication on the 2nd of December 2015 at
Perdana Leadership Foundation.
The idea for the publication came
from Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah herself, when
she realised there was no publication
available on women who helmed Malaysia’s institutions of higher learning.
“I believe this is the first collection of
women leaders in academia to date, and
I hope that this publication will inspire
other Malaysian women in their own vocations,” she remarked. Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah had herself served as Chancellor for
fifteen years at Multimedia University,
Malaysia’s first private university. “The
presence of women heading university
councils as Chancellors, Pro-Chancellors
or Vice Chancellors in both the public
and private spheres may be small, but
the increasing presence of women at the
highest level of academia is encouraged
and can only bode well for the future,”
she added.
Tun Siti reminded the audience
that in the past, education was emphasised only for men. Today, however, the situation was reversed in that
more than half of all undergraduates in
universities are women. It’s the men,
she joked, who needed to catch up to
women in Malaysia.
Also present at the launch was Tun
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth
Prime Minister of Malaysia and the
Honorary President of Perdana Leadership Foundation, who, in his closing
remarks, expressed some concern over
the low men to women ratio in universities. He wondered if this indicated an
“abdication of responsibilities” on the
part of men and speculated that the imbalance could lead to social problems
later whereby it would be difficult for
highly qualified women to find equally
educated men as marriage partners.
Other VIPs included Toh Puan
Aishah Omar Ong, Pro-Chancellor of
Universiti Malaya, Tan Sri Nik Mohamed
Nik Yaacob, Executive Director, Perdana
Leadership Foundation, and Madam
Norliza Haji Jaffar, Chief Operating
Officer (COO) of MMU. In her speech,
Madam Norliza stated that recognising
women leaders is not just a matter of
gender equality. Rather, it was an issue
of leadership; good leaders are not easy
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