Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) aspires to be a global university of educational excellence with transformative societal impact. In an effort to realize this vision, UTAR strives to attain the following goals among the many it sets forth:

To achieve the goals, it became imperative for UTAR to offer relevant postgraduate programmes to attract talents who aspire to seek a career in research or academia. Hence, the Institute of Postgraduate Studies and Research (IPSR) in UTAR was established and commenced operations in September 2004 with the following principal areas of responsibilities:

UTAR has launched the first 5 Master’s programmes in 2005, they are Master of Business Administration, Master of Business Administration (Corporate Governance), Master of Computer Science, Master of Information Systems and Master of Arts (Chinese Studies). In January 2006, 43 students have been enrolled into 5 Master’s programmes. By the end of 2006, 12 Master’s and 2 PhD programmes were offered with total enrolment of 102 students consisting of 30 Master’s by Research, 29 Master’s by Mixed Mode and 43 Master’s by Coursework. The number of postgraduate programmes offered increased progressively as 10 faculties were involved. Figure 1 provides pictorial illustration of these increases.

With an established reputation of offering quality yet affordable postgraduate programmes, UTAR experienced steady enrolment of students into various postgraduate programmes since the initial enrolment of 102 students in January 2006 intake into 5 Master’s programmes. As of 31 December 2023, UTAR recorded a total cumulative enrolment of 4135 postgraduate students. Figures 2 and 3 provide comparative analysis on the enrolments from 2006 – 2023.

As of 31 December 2023, 1,786 postgraduate students had graduated from various Master’s and PhD programmes. Table 3 and Figure 4 provide the numbers and the cumulative number of postgraduate students graduated from postgraduate programmes, Master by Coursework, Master by Mixed Mode, Master by Research and PhD by Research as of 31 December 2023.

To ensure quality of graduates from UTAR postgraduate programmes, as well as to benchmark the research work of its postgraduate candidates against international standards, UTAR has made it a policy that the external examiners for the examination of thesis and dissertation of candidates in postgraduate programmes must be appointed from among distinguished academics or researchers from overseas with recent 7-year publications in international refereed journals. Further to this, UTAR requires by research candidates to publish their research findings as part of their graduation requirement.

Furthermore, faculties are required to appoint at least one (1) External Examiner (EE) for each postgraduate programme within 6 months after the programme is offered. Each EE can be appointed for a maximum of three (3) years in a term for a maximum of two (2) terms. The proposed EE must be a practitioner or subject matter expert in the field he or she is expected to advise, preferably with an Associate Professor position and above. Faculty is required to arrange the External Examiner visit for programme review at least once within each appointment term. During the External Examiner visit, EE evaluates the planning and implementation of the programme in all the aspects including programme learning outcomes, programme structure, curriculum content, student assessment and performance, staff strength, educational resources, programme management and continual quality improvement in accordance to the areas as described in the Code of Practice for Programme Accreditation (COPPA), and quality assurance documents issued by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency and professional bodies.