From the VC's Office

Kaizen and a Better OUM

‘Change for the better’. That’s the loose translation of the Japanese business philosophy kaizen.

‘The Toyota Way’, to illustrate, is one business approach that involves a healthy dose of kaizen: Toyota employees are encouraged to identify areas of potential improvement, no matter how small, and propose viable solutions.

Changing for the better with the kaizen approach is something I would like to emphasise in this 24th issue of inspired. Having passed the mid-point of OUM’s Strategic Roadmap for 2022- 2026, it is now time for us to dedicate our full attention to the final stretch of our strategic plans. Barely two years are left, after all, for us to meet our goals.

it is now time for us to dedicate our full attention to the final stretch of our strategic plans.


Growth, Sustainability, Visibility, Harmony

To track our progress, it is helpful at the start of this new year to revisit the last 12 months of 2024 – a year in which we achieved significant milestones under the four pillars of the strategic roadmap: growth, sustainability, visibility, and harmony.

These pillars encapsulate key deliverables that will shape our future as an open university, as well as the values that matter most to us:

  • We aim to grow by continuing to explore emerging trends in teaching and learning, research and industry, while adopting practices that best benefit our learners.
  • We seek to thrive by consistently providing what our learners want and need, ensuring that OUM remains the top choice for flexible, practical, and recognised higher education programmes in the country.
  • We aspire for the OUM brand to shine, embodying positive ideals and principles both in Malaysia and across the ASEAN region.
  • Finally, we pledge to nurture a congenial environment across the University, making OUM a unique place to study and a preferred workplace for our employees.

The Year That Was

Last year will likely be remembered as the year of the aspiring teachers, thanks to a remarkable uptake of our Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching (PGDT), the one-year programme that accounted for more than half of our enrolment of about 18,000 new learners.

many people recognise that OUM’s PGDT is a highly valued qualification that will help them secure teaching careers in Malaysia.


The unifying thread in all these partnerships is the mutual commitment towards providing high-quality and diverse study opportunities to as many people as possible, and importantly, doing so by leveraging the flexibility and accessibility of open and distance learning (ODL).


The upswing in the PGDT matches perfectly the current national demand for educators, particularly in private and international schools where there has been a noticeable surge in student numbers. That many people are keen to become teachers, and realising they can get from OUM the necessary grounding to fulfil that role, is something the artist Bob Ross might call a “happy little accident.”

Above and beyond this, however, many people recognise that OUM’s PGDT is a highly valued qualification that will help them secure teaching careers in Malaysia. They, along with their peers in other programmes, made up the roughly 35,000 learners who actively studied at OUM in each of the three semesters that ran in 2024.

At the end of October, we celebrated the class of 2024 at our 28th Convocation in Kuala Lumpur. Among almost 6,500 learners who graduated were local badminton star Thinaah Muralitharan, who completed the Bachelor of Education (TESL), one 85-year-old, four prison inmates, and three learners who made up the first graduating batch of the Postgraduate Diploma in Islamic Studies. We also conferred an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy in Education degree to social activist and longtime OUM patron Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Lee Lam Thye.

In September, we launched the Master in Data Science programme, our answer to the rapid-fire advancements in the field of computer science.

Through our Centre of Excellence for Lifelong Learning, we also launched the Professional Certificate in Islamic Studies, a two-month course that offers the general public a chance to try their hand at OUM’s hybrid study approach. Throughout the year we forged new alliances: we signed memoranda with, among others, Pertubuhan IKRAM Malaysia (a local non-profit organisation), and International Islamic University Malaysia.

Agreements were also inked with institutions in Kazakhstan, namely the L. N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, International Information Technologies University, and Astana Information Technologies University, as well as Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gibson College (Ethiopia), Pokhara University (Nepal), and Beijing Open University (China).

The unifying thread in all these partnerships is the mutual commitment towards providing highquality and diverse study opportunities to as many people as possible, and importantly, doing so by leveraging the flexibility and accessibility of open and distance learning (ODL).

Academics and non-academics alike, in teams and individually, managed to put OUM on the map through award-winning research.


Academics and non-academics alike, in teams and individually, managed to put OUM on the map through award-winning research. In September, a group of academics from the Faculty of Technology and Applied Sciences won a best paper award at the 6th Open Society Conference in Indonesia with their groundbreaking work on a circular economy model, while others won similar best paper awards at the 37th AAOU Annual Conference in Pakistan in October, and the 2nd International Conference of Digital Business, Society, and Economy in Thailand in November, with research that addressed technology and support systems, gender and age disparities in AI adoption, and more.

Rounding up our award winners are a team of instructional designers who won several local awards for their paper on the use of H5P and AI in study modules to boost learner engagement and improve learning outcomes.

In one of our final activities of the year, we attended the OU5 meeting in the Philippines, where we discussed ongoing collaborative projects with the group’s four other open universities. We also committed to new research studies that will kick off this year, on such topics as nano-learning, sustainable development goals, ASEAN entrepreneurship, gender equality, and quality parameters in ODL.

Through our ‘Save the Earth’ programme, we planted 200 saplings in Sabah, our humble contribution to the Greening Malaysia Campaign’s race to plant 100 million trees by 2025. We hope to cap this year by planting a total of 2,500 trees, which would coincide wonderfully with our upcoming silver anniversary. In July and September, we conducted community programmes at orang asli villages in Perak and Negeri Sembilan, bringing donations and engaging in educational and fun activities with the local children.

These community initiatives shared a common goal: giving back to the planet and community and expressing our gratitude for the support we have received from all corners of the country.

Focusing on harmony within the organisation, we found ways to fete the people who work at OUM. A long-service award ceremony in October honoured loyal staff who have served the University for at least a decade, while a family day in September took the staff away from their workstations on a fun-filled excursion to kindle our team spirit.

Our 2024 Zenith

Our highlight of the year was the accreditation we obtained from the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) under its QA-Based Accreditation System for Technology-Enhanced and Technology-Mediated Higher Education in the Age of Technological Disruptions.

Our highlight of the year was the accreditation we obtained from the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) under its QA-Based Accreditation System


OUM was the first institution to apply for accreditation in mid-2023, initiating a series of tasks in data collection and self-review in January 2024 that culminated in a three-day site visit by a multinational AAOU panel in July.

The QA-based accreditation comprised 10 criteria meant to assess the future readiness of an institution, like OUM, that offers technologyenhanced education: (1) Vision, Mission, Management, and Planning, (2) Leadership and Strategic Management, (3) Learners and Learner Support, (4) Human Resource Development and Management, (5) Programme Design and Development, (6) Course Design and Development, (7) Learner Assessment, (8) Infrastructure, Media, and Learning Resource Management, (9) Research Management, and (10) Community Involvement/Extension Service/Public Service.

The exercise put us through a rigorous assessment by experts in the field who not only scored our processes but also provided commendations for strengths and achievements, identified specific gaps, and recommended steps to address them.

The four-out-of-four rating we received aside, the most valuable outcome is the report we received at the end of the evaluation process, which now serves as a practical guideline as we approach the terminus of our 2022-2026 roadmap.

Changing for the Better

Proud as we are that OUM received the highest score from the AAOU accreditors, we also acknowledge there are gaps that need closing.

Each and every effort, if implemented with OUM’s institutional goals in mind, will help us mark the milestones of the next 25 years, and allow us to bring to life the theme of our silver anniversary: ‘Humanising Digital Education.


Moving forward, we will be improving communication with learners, stakeholders, and the wider public, and boosting faculty participation in research. We will also be taking steps to address AI use in teaching and assessment, and reshaping the role of corporate communication in promoting the OUM brand, especially to spotlight the unique qualities of our 35 learning centres.

Wherever possible, the relevant teams and departments at OUM will be focusing on these as well as the remaining objectives of OUM’s roadmap. Importantly, here is an opportunity for us to recognise the value of kaizen in our daily tasks, whether simple or complex, to introduce purposeful and actionable steps.

There is a solution to every conundrum, whether that involves fixing snags, updating methods and systems, simplifying complicated procedures, or introducing new approaches to better embody the digital education approach that OUM hopes to be known for.

“We believe that human beings should have infinite possibilities to explore”, said Mitsuo Kinoshita, formerly one of Toyota’s top brass. Indeed, changing for the better would be nearimpossible without the freedom and courage to explore new ideas, both big and small.

That so much was accomplished in 2024 should inspire us to advance confidently and venture into domains previously uncharted, especially as we usher in our 25th anniversary celebrations in August 2025.

Each and every effort, if implemented with OUM’s institutional goals in mind, will help us mark the milestones of the next 25 years, and allow us to bring to life the theme of our silver anniversary: ‘Humanising Digital Education.’

Prof Dr Ahmad Izanee Awang
President/Vice-Chancellor