There are 170,500 undergraduate students enrolled, and 90,105 postgraduate students of which 40,368 are foreign students from 35 countries.[5] Since its establishment in 1970, the Malay language was used as the university's medium of instruction.
A Sponsoring Committee chaired by Syed Nasir Ismail, a Malay intellectual, was set up to prepare a report recommending the establishment of UKM. Other prominent members of this committee include Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (Tun), Malaysia's fourth Prime Minister, who was then the Education Minister, and Dr. Mohd Rashdan Haji Baba, who later became UKM's first Vice-Chancellor.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia opened its doors on 18 May 1970 to 192 undergraduate students in Jalan Pantai Baru, Kuala Lumpur, a temporary campus housing three main faculties, the Faculties of Science, Arts and Islamic Studies. In October 1977, UKM moved to its present premises which form the main campus in Bangi. The campus has a size of 1,096 ha (2,710 acres). UKM has two health campuses, the Kuala Lumpur campus in Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, and the UKM Medical Centre in Cheras. The Kuala Lumpur campus consists of the Faculties of Health Sciences, Pharmacy, Dentistry and the Pre-Clinical Departments of the Medical Faculty. With a size of 20 ha (49 acres), the Kuala Lumpur campus was established in 1974.
The campus in Cheras consists of the Medical Faculty, the UKM Teaching Hospital (Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz UKM (HCTM)) and the UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI). The Cheras campus was opened in 1997. Besides these campuses, UKM operates seven research stations (RS): The Tasik Chini RS, The Marine Ecosystem RS, The Langkawi Geopark RS, The Marine RS, The Fraser's Hill RS, The Plant Biotechnology RS and in the main campus itself, the UKM Campus Living Laboratory, which comprises the UKM Permanent Forest Reserve, or its Malay name, Hutan Simpan Kekal UKM as well as the Fernarium and the Herbarium.
UKM was awarded the status of a Malaysian Research University in October 2006 by the Ministry of Higher Education, a move designed to try to propel the universities into leading research universities in line with the Higher Education Strategic Plan 2007–2020.
In 2006, UKM won the Prime Minister's Quality Award.
Coat of arms
The current coat of arms of the UKM was first designed by university staffer Mohd Aris Atan and has been in use since 1972. It was modified to its present form by publications officer Zulkifli Ibrahim, which was launched on 29 July 2000 in conjunction with the university's 30th anniversary, with stripes added to the tiger's body.[6][7] The arms is depicted as a quartered shield featuring an atomic symbol, a compass, a gear, a Malayan tiger and the national flower, Bunga Raya, or hibiscus rosa-sinensis, with an overlaid book placed on top of it. The atomic symbol represents science, the compasses and gear represent technology, the tiger represents strength and courage and the book represents knowledge.[8] It is blazoned:
Shield: Tierced per pall reversed, the dexter Or a conventional representation of an atom Sable, the sinister Azure a pair of Compasses erect and extended between a demi cogwheel Argent, the base Argent a Bunga Raya or hibiscus flower proper, a chief Gules thereon a tiger passant to the sinister also proper.
Crest: An open book fesswise proper.
The first coat of arms of the university designed by the First Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, was different from the present one. It was blazoned as:
Tierced per pall reversed, the dexter Gules on a bend Azure fimbriated Argent a cresent and a fourteen-pointed federal star Or, the sinister Vert a tiger holding a torch and a kris proper and the base Or a Bunga Raya or hibiscus flower also proper.
The crest featured a scroll inscribed with the words 'Zidni Ilman', which means increase me in knowledge, a reference to the word in Surah 20 Taha, Verse 114 of the Quran.[9]
In 2010, the University's corporate logo was created by its Centre for Corporate Communications, featuring the coat of arms accompanied by the names of the university in Malay and English. The Malay name (UNIVERSITI KEBANGSAAN MALAYSIA) is big and presented in upper case, with the letters U, K and M bigger than the rest. The English name (The National University of Malaysia) is small, italicised and presented in sentence case.
The National University of Malaysia is currently one of the three public universities in Malaysia to adopt its coat of arms, the other two are the University of Malaya and Universiti Sains Malaysia.
List of vice-chancellors
The following is a list of vice-chancellors of the National University of Malaysia.
Vice-Chancellor
Academic Qualification
Term in office
1 Rashdan Baba
Diploma of Agriculture (Malaya Agriculture College), Bachelor of Agriculture Science (Reading, UK), PhD in Agriculture Science (Leeds, UK).
1970–1971
2 Ariffin Ngah Marzuki
Bachelor of Medical & Surgery-MBBS (Malaya), Master of Surgeon in Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG, UK).
1971–1974
3 Mohd Ghazali Abdul Rahman
Bachelor of Science (Western Australia), PhD in Science (Western Australia).
1974–1975
4 Anuwar Mahmud
Bachelor of Veterinary Science (India), Master of Science (Hawaii, US).
1975–1980
5 Awang Had Salleh
Bachelor of Arts in Malay Studies (Malaya), Master of Education (Malaya), PhD in Education & Sociology (Stanford, US).
Bachelor of Science in Economics (Queen’s, Ireland), Master of Economics (Leicester, UK), PhD in Economics (Kent, UK).
1998–2003
9 Mohd Salleh Mohd Yasin
Bachelor of Biological Science (ITB, Indonesia), PhD in Science (Bath, UK).
2003–2006
10 Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin
Bachelor of Medical & Surgery-MBBS (Malaya), Master of Health Science in Personnel Education (NSW, Australia), PhD (NSW, Australia).
2006–2014
11 Noor Azlan Ghazali
Bachelor of Economics (Malaya), Master of Public Administration (Harvard, US), Master of Business Administration (Nebraska-Lincoln, US), PhD in Economics (Nebraska-Lincoln, US).
2014–2018
12 Mohd Hamdi Abdul Shukor
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (Imperial College, London), Master of Science in Advanced Manufacturing Technology and System Management (Manchester, UK), PhD in Engineering (Kyoto, Japan).
2019–2020
13 Mohd Ekhwan Toriman
Ph.D (Hydrogeomorphology and GIS application). Faculty of Science, Agriculture & Engineering (University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK) M.Sc (Hydrogeomorphology). Faculty of Science & Engineering. (University of Manchester) B.A (Hons) (Physical Geography), Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. B. A (Geography). Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
When the Times Higher Education (THE) Guide University Rankings was published in October 2014, it was reported that UKM, along with Universiti Malaya, opted not to submit data for consideration. The UKM Strategic Centre deputy executive director Associate, Professor Dr. Masturah Markom, responded by saying that the rankings were unfair to the Malaysian educational context. She specifically cited the measurement of "industry income" in the THE methodology of university assessment, stating that Malaysian industry input cannot compete with other countries such as the United States of America. This is despite the fact that only a 2.5% weightage is allocated to "industry income" in the methodology, with more conventional categories such as teaching and research still making up 90%.[13][14]
