KUALA LUMPUR: Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TAR UC) is now officially a full-fledged university.

       MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong said the 53-year-old institute will now be known as Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology (TAR UMT).

       "We have worked so hard over the last 53 years to build Tunku Abdul Rahman College into a respected institution of university status," he said when announcing the status upgrade at the main campus in Setapak on Tuesday (April 12).

       The Transport Minister said the institute is well known in Malaysia for producing high quality graduates in accounting, computing and information technology, business, quantity surveying, applied sciences, engineering and many more.

       Dr Wee, who is TARC Education Foundation Board of Trustees chairman, said the university will continue to provide higher education opportunities at an affordable price.

       "It (the university) will continue to serve the wider community through a wide spectrum of activities.

       "It wants to be a university for the people regardless of race, class and creed," he added.

       Dr Wee also said in conjunction with the upgrading, the university will be organising a TAR UMT logo design competition.

       TAR UMT began as Tunku Abdul Rahman College in 1969 and was upgraded to a university college in 2013.

       Former MCA president Tun Tan Siew Sin had suggested a non-profit private higher education institution (HEI) be established and in 1969, and the Tunku Abdul Rahman College was set up with an enrolment of 764 students.

       In 2013, the HEI, which was named after Malaysia’s first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, was then upgraded to a university college.

       It currently has a student population of over 28,000 in six campuses across the country. It has also produced more than 220,000 alumni.