By Danial Yusof
GOMBAK, 27 September 2020: Yesterday (26 September) marked the closing and certificate giving ceremony for the Leadership Development for Teachers Programme and Youth Leadership Fellowship in Private Islamic Schools which was held at Banquet Hall, IIUM Gombak campus.
The event was attended by Rector of IIUM cum R.E.A.D Patron, Prof. Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, accompanied by Deputy Rector (Student Development and Community Engagement) cum R.E.A.D Chairman, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zulkifli Hasan, Public Affairs Counsellor of U.S Embassy, Mr. Bradley A. Hurst, Executive Director IKRAM, Hj. Megat Mohamed Amin, Exco ABIM, Mr. Mohamad Safwandy, followed by academicians from Kulliyyah of Education (KOED).
This programme, called READ (Resilience, Empower, Active, Decision Maker), aimed at equipping teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills to develop and train culturally aware and civic-minded youth leaders. Plus, it also aims to develop confident young Muslim leaders who are culturally aware and passionate about becoming agents of change in their local communities.
The three-phase programme commenced in February 2020 and the final phase with the closing ceremony was supposed to be held in June 2020, but due to COVID-19 pandemic, it has been postponed to September. It involved 65 teachers from IKRAM, ABIM and Orang Asli schools and 87 students from IKRAM, ABIM and Setia Budi schools.
According to the Rector, IIUM aims to build a platform for humanity through education in which everyone will work together regardless of the boundaries for the benefit of the people especially the indigenous community.
œI am convinced that this programme needs to be expanded by including the indigenous school, in which we can take this programme and implement it to other schools including the indigenous schools so that we can level up the status of schools.”
I hope KOED will take up this initiative and deliver and access the course with collaboration with the embassy, the Rector added.
Meanwhile, according to Mr. Bradley Hurst, the embassy is looking forward to work with IIUM in helping different groups of community through education and sharing expertise together for the betterment of both parties or more.
œWe have a lot of ideas to be implemented by working with IIUM through the Kulliyyah of Education, which is something that we would like to continue and be part of and with that we are planning to bring our expertise from U.S universities, to work with academicians in IIUM, and share experiences and information which can benefit the students, he said.***