Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Congress of Professors

Day One

The Malaysian Council of Professors (MPN) holds its first national congress on 6-8 July 2011 at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) in Kuala Lumpur. Themed "Knowledge Transforming The Nation", the congress is attended by 1200 professors from all public universities in Malaysia.
The event started with two welcome addresses: first by the Director, of this year congress, Prof Dato' Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak and that was followed by Professor Emeritus Dato' Dr Zakri Abdul Hamid. Prof Zakri is the Chairman of MPN. Participants were informed that the main aim of the congress was for professors to address or discuss government transformational agendas and to come up with suitable workable resolutions that can be used for nationa building. The first day saw three plenary papers being presented. The first paper, "Knowledge Transforming the Nation: Perspective from STI" was delivered by Prof Dato' Zakri. The second paper, "Knowledge transforming the Nation: Perspective from Social Science & Humanities". Despite the stress on science, technology and innovation for nation building, the soft aspects of humanities such as ethical values and quality of life will "complete the cycle" for a great nation. Yang Berbahagia Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad delivered a third paper titled "Transformational Agenda Beyond 2020".
Tun Mahathir, being the architect of VISION 2020, reiterated the need to balance our aspiration of becoming a developed nation with the right morality value for Malaysia. Guided by these three important papers, participants were divided into seven groups to discuss Malaysia's transformation agenda.

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