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Ancora Imparo

September 2005

I have just had the pleasure of visiting our two overseas campuses. Both are progressing well, very much helped by committed staff and by an increasing degree of three-way flow of staff between Australia, Malaysia and South Africa.

Monash University Malaysia now has almost 2700 students. About 20 per cent of these students are international (with respect to Malaysia), coming from many countries, and the largest number coming from Indonesia.

The most significant recent development there has been the commencement of the Malaysian branch of the Monash University Medical School. A dinner was held to thank the many people involved in the development of the new medical school, including those from the health sector who have been extremely supportive of the development.

Many of those helping us with the medical school are Monash alumni, once again indicating the value of our alumni network. The clinical school will be partly located at Johor Bahru in the south of the Malaysian peninsula -- which urgently requires a medical school -- and the Sunway group is greatly expanding its hospital close to the university campus in Kuala Lumpur. It will become a teaching hospital.

Many community health centres will also be affiliated with Monash, ensuring a balance between hospital-based medicine and community general practice. Several outstanding staff have been recruited, including an outstanding research neuroscientist from Japan.

The Australian Medical Council has now agreed to accredit the Malaysian branch of our medical school, and the process is in train. Demand for places has been very strong. I inspected the foundations of the new campus buildings that are being purpose-built for Monash University Malaysia by Sunway. It will be a wonderful facility, providing space for our rapidly expanding campus, including greatly increased space for research.

Monash South Africa is thriving. The student numbers are growing strongly with more than 800 students already at the campus and, from the initial figures for enrolments for next year, the numbers will be well over 1000 in the first semester of 2006.

The strong contribution of students from all countries in southern Africa is continuing, but it is pleasing that the number of South African students is growing most rapidly.

The campus is performing within budget with a steadily decreasing annual operating deficit. The value of the land and buildings is rapidly appreciating, off-setting the operating deficit. Expansion of programs is planned, with commencement of science and perhaps education, nursing (degree conversion) and other health sciences from 2007. The Department of Education is now strongly supportive of the campus. It will be jointly audited by AUQA and the Higher Education Quality Council of South Africa in August/September 2006.

Ten students from the student association will spend 10 days at Monash University, essentially looking at student services so that they can contribute to the design of increased student services at Monash South Africa. The new Monash mobility intercampus program starting in 2006 will greatly enhance the opportunity for two-way exchange of students and staff between our international campuses.

Many other exciting things are happening at and for Monash. The highly prestigious Economist magazine based in the UK ranked our business school the best in Australia. Taken with the number one ranking in Australia of the Engineering/IT disciplines by The Times Higher Education Supplement and the number one ranking of biomedical sciences in the Group of Eight composite performance measures for research, the strength of Monash in diverse areas is apparent. It makes it clear that our target to be in the top three performers in research in Australia in all disciplines by 2008 is realistic and, with the concurrent steps we are taking to improve teaching and learning, our longer-term ambition to be one of the best universities in the world is achievable.

Our international campuses, the co-location of our Clayton campus with the Australian Synchrotron and the location and extent of our land make us the best-positioned Australian university to be a truly great international university.

Richard Larkins