CEO Regards Partner University as “Special Institution”

LONG TERM PARTNERSHIP: SEGi Group CEO Dato’ Clement Hii discusses a point with USQ Vice-Chancellor /President Professor Bill Lovegrove at the recent graduation ceremony.

The group of colleges under SEG International Bhd (SEGi) has many overseas university partners, but for its Group CEO, Dato’ Clement Hii, he considers one Australian university as “a very special institution”. The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) was the first institution that agreed to work with him when he took over the then Institute IBMS in Kuching, Sarawak in 1998. “We had only a small number of students at the time, and numerous universities turned us down when we wanted to run their twinning programmes.” He added: “They wanted to work with the bigger players. They thought we didn’t have the human or financial resources.” Hii revisited the story on how he began as an educator when he was invited as Graduation Speaker at the recent graduation ceremony in Kuala Lumpur. Because of the tie-up with USQ, IBMS grew dramatically in the following years. In 2001, it was acquired by a public listed entity,

and Hii went on to head the SEGi Group, which now has about 14,000 students in its campuses across Malaysia. SEGi’s network of collaborative partners currently includes University of Newcastle, Queensland University of Technology, Sheffield University, University of London and Upper Iowa University, among others.

The Group will open its flagship campus in Selangor next month. The RM150mil state-of-the-art campus can accommodate 12,000 students.

The SEGi-USQ collaboration has now expanded into bachelor and masters degrees in areas like management, information technology, engineering, multimedia and early childhood education.

USQ’s current vice-chancellor and president, Professor Bill Lovegrove, has built on the foundation of the university to make it a well known brand in the field of international higher education. He has initiated many high profile changes at the university over the past few years, which includes improving its delivery system for offshore students.

Hii said that the strong educational ties between USQ and SEGi had been strengthened over the years. “USQ has been recognised as a major contributor towards human capital development in Malaysia with thousands of its graduates working in various industries.”