Annuar Musa outlines plans for MARA to transform, progress

Mara chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa Monday outlined seven strategic visions to be implemented so that MARA could start to change next year with long term plans beginning from 2015 to 2025.

He said MARA has only three months to adapt itself to 2014 before MARA's long term blueprint for 2015-2025 was ready.

"We want to take MARA out of the arcade and bazaar era into a constructor of business parks. We do not want Mara to be too rigid but not to the extension of breaking all regulations, MARA officers need to understand the objective of the agency which was set up to facilitate Malays," he told reporters at his office Monday.

The seven strategic matters are to upgrade all 49 Mara Junior Science Colleges (MRSM) to international level through a combination of national and foreign curriculum. MRSM students will take SPM at Form Five and sit for a Cambridge-level examination at Form Four.

"The mastering of languages will be expanded, not just English and Malay but we will give students the option of mastering three languages and this will set MRSM as unique with its own premium values," he said.

For the second area, MARA will empower the quality of education at Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) in strategic fields, in line with the national economic activities.

"Among those to be given priority will be the Malaysia Institute of Aviation Technology under UniKL which has related programmes with the aviation industry. This is also an anticipation of the country being identified by several airline and aircraft companies, including Airbus which requires expert and skilled workforce in aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul," he said.

The sponsorship of students overseas will continue to be improved and Mara will encourage graduates to further studies to higher levels such as Masters or Doctor of Philosophy.

"If in the past we only sponsored to the degree level, excellent students will be encouraged to continue studies and students could negotiate with the sponsorship department early as we want to encourage them to take up post-graduate studies," he said.

The fourth matter touched on MARA's education fund which totals RM1 billion, as announced by the Prime Minister, last month.

"MARA intends to turn it into an endowment fund. We will expand with the funds of government-linked companies (GLC) through a wakaf concept. We hope to harness all funds by negotiating with all GLC for a common fund," he said.

On the fifth area, the Express Contract Financing Scheme (Spike) will be expanded from next year as MARA does not want Bumiputera and Malay contractors to sub-contract the projects after successfully bidding, due to the lack of capital to start the project.

For the sixth matter, Annuar announced a major fund injection for Amanah Saham MARA which is now seen as inactive since the fund was not effectively invested.

"Mara will be giving a fund injection through MARA Pelaburan Berhad so that it could yield better and more competitive returns to investors. It will be managed by a new management team, namely Permodalan MARA Berhad," he said.

Lastly, MARA will be placing all training programmes online to enable Malay and Bumiputera entrepreneurs to undergo training courses organised by the agency.

He said based on feedback received, courses were not well publicized and as a result many entrepreneurs missed them.