Role of Higher Education Institution to the Development of Community: Evidence from UiTM Melaka

This paper aims at understanding the impacts brought by UiTM Melaka to the development of community. It is partly due to the traditional argument that the university has been detached from the community development. A simple random sampling was employed, and 52 respondents managed to participate in this study by answering questionnaires. Next, the structured interviews were conducted to cross-check the statistical analysis findings among the communities in Alor Gajah, Bandaraya Melaka and Jasin. The purpose of this study is to find out how the existence of UiTM Melaka has impacted the community development, especially in the aspects of public transportation, facilities, business growth, education and job opportunities. The results found that the existence of UiTM Melaka contributes to the valuable impacts to the development of those aspects, particularly on promoting youth and teenagers to pursue higher education. Besides, its establishment does assist the community to increase their income as more job opportunities are available in the surrounding areas. However, there is a need to look at how UiTM Melaka can help in growing the business companies (commercial) around the residential areas. These findings provide significant implications to the university management and policymakers to re-look at specific strategies to further strengthen the university engagements and community development in the future.