BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

UNIVERSITI Brunei Darussalam (UBD) is actively recruiting academic staff both locally and internationally with a strategy offering attractive compensation benefits and research opportunities to get only the best of faculty talents.

In a media release, the Sultanate’s premier university said it has adopted “a recruitment strategy to improve the quality of its academic staff to boost the quality of research and teaching in the university”. It noted that such a strategy was necessary in the competition for faculty talents that rival international universities.

“The recruitment strategy,” UBD said, “is in line with His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam’s titah during the 26th Convocation last year that called for academics to improve their academic performance in research and teaching to boost the university’s reputation on the global platform.”

This is aligned with the Skim Perkhidmatan Tenaga Akademik Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Awam (SPTA) devised by His Majesty’s Government, UBD said.

It is competitive and stringent, and seeks to employ only the best and highest quality academics at the university, UBD said.

Through its various scholarship schemes such as the Chancellor’s Scholar, the university offers aspiring academicians in Brunei to study and undertake research at top universities around the world with the requirement that the scholars return to UBD to teach upon their completion of their graduate studies.

Likewise, current academic staff may pursue their PhD in top peer universities.

With its Eminent Visiting Professorship and Visiting Appointment scheme, UBD has attracted world-renowned experts and researchers such as Prof Dr Victor King in Sociology and Anthropology, Prof Dr Euston Quah in Economics, and Prof Deborah Hughes-Hallet in Mathematics to teach and undertake research in UBD.

All eminent visiting professors teach in the undergraduate and graduate programmes in UBD.

The eminent visiting professors’ involvement in joint research projects with UBD staff have, thus far, resulted in capacity building for young Bruneian staff, publications of working papers and articles in top-tiered journals, and identification of new research areas and opportunities, UBD said.

“The collaboration that each professor brings have yielded strong networking and collaboration between UBD and their home universities and affiliated institutions.”

The university prides itself in having full-time staff who have had impactful influence in the world of academia such as Prof Glenn Hardaker in Education, Chair Professor Dr David Koh in Occupational Health and Medicine, and Chair Professor Datuk Dr Osman Bakar, who is named one of Top 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, in Islamic Studies.

“In terms of research, academic staff have enjoyed plenty of research opportunities with ample resources to support their research,” UBD said. “Formerly professor of Southeast Asian studies and director of the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of Bonn in Germany, Prof Dr Solvay Gerke has served in the Institute of Asian Studies as a professor in Sociology and Social Anthropology for over a year.”

In the recent Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asian University Rankings, UBD placed 23rd in faculty student ratio with a score of 97.0 (out of 100). “The increase of high quality academic staff in UBD has, in turn, changed the face of its teaching methods to be more innovative and aligned with the demands of future job markets,” the premier university said in its media release.

The Brunei Times