It seems an almost cliched view to take, especially in a world that appears to be growing increasingly partisan, but education can very much be a panacea for the world’s ills and issues.

Lifelong educator and Taylor’s University vice-chancellor and president Prof Barry Winn certainly believes this is the case.

“In the simplest terms, the world needs educated people. We need high-level skills. We need people who have a broad understanding of their work. This is where universities have a role to play,” he says decisively.

Winn, who was appointed to his current position back in January, is definitely making it his mission to position Taylor’s University as a world-class institution. He points out that Taylor’s has already been steadily moving up the rankings, even before he joined.

“What Taylor’s is doing here is that we’ve been able to develop a private institution and deliver high quality output,” he adds.

Certainly Taylor’s University has consistently managed to move up the Quacquarelli Symonds league table, making it to No 251 in the QS World University Rankings 2025 as well as earning the distinction of being the top private university in Southeast Asia — a region that is shaping up as one of the fastest-growing education hubs in the world — for five consecutive years. This means that Taylor’s University has carved out a place for itself among the top 1% of the most elite of its peers globally.

“What the QS rankings tell us is that it gives us confidence, and it gives employers confidence. Parents and students know that the education we are offering here is of an international standard,” says Winn.

Given how the top of the table is often populated by institutions with literally hundreds of years behind them, joining their ranks is never easy, Winn admits. He explains that a lot of their achievements are backed by their deep roots in research, where getting papers published in selected journals is needed to add heft to their credibility.

However, he is quick to add that he believes Taylor’s University is definitely treading on a similar path to reach that goal. The key to reaching that objective is to provide courses that very much answer questions that everybody is asking, he says.

“Here, in Malaysia, like many countries in the world, the population is getting older — we’re living longer. Governments have to be able to deal with an elderly population, so you will need new models of medical care. Very often, in medical schools, there’s a lot of emphasis on research and they might want to pursue neurosurgery or specialties related to cardiac disease or cancer. All these things are important, but actually, there’s a big need for geriatric care, understanding the issues that ageing people face, and how we can give them dignity and respect in their life. This can include carers, physiotherapists … it’s even the people who work in shops. There is a whole range of people who will be needed to support that type of community.

“It is not glamorous, but it is very much needed,” says Winn.

Indeed, the breadth and depth of courses offered at Taylor’s University allow students to explore subjects such as pharmacy and, soon, veterinary medicine — alongside engineering, architecture, business and social sciences. The institution also recently gained approval to offer a degree in the field of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

“We are a university for the digital age, a university for 2050, not 1950. We want to complement what exists here. To give some context, the University of Malaya has an important role to play as the national institution and we can complement its role by doing different things to give the country a diversity of approaches when it comes to education. So, I think the future is pretty bright,” he says.

According to Winn, it is also through partnerships that Taylor’s University can raise its profile, adding that they help to enforce its standing.

“In many ways, a lot of what we do has already received world recognition. We’ve had a lot of international universities visit that want to partner with us in different ways. I think we have to build more international partnerships, and it has to be around having shared academic pursuits.

“For example, we recently had Cardiff University doing research in Sabah on the rainforests, and one of our Impact Labs is also doing work along those lines, so we brought those academics together. Our business school is also working with a couple of institutions in the UK. There is something about being here in Southeast Asia that gives us a competitive advantage,” explains Winn.

He also thinks that in five years, Taylor’s University will have developed some really strong research centres, underpinned by those aforementioned international partnerships with some key players.

There is no question that education is changing for both the institutions and the students. Winn says he is a big proponent of using technology to enhance the overall learning experience. He expects generative artificial intelligence (AI) to be a game changer, both in and out of the lecture hall.

“To give an example of how it helps learning, in the field of medicine, you can now programme avatars to have any disorders, so that you can clinically study the condition and not have to wait for a real-life patient,” he explains.

He points to the Taylor’s Virtual Online Future Technology & Extended Reality (VORTEX XR) Lab as an example of where technology can help to enrich a subject matter — where it would allow students to be exposed to real-life situations in a controlled environment.

However, while the learning component of a university plays a big part in a student’s higher education experience, it is not the entire story. Universities are, after all, the places where entire generations make connections that often last their lifetime. It is where students find their own identity, learn how to interact with people from literally all walks of life, and deal with the complexities that come with handling the human condition. It is a dance that, Winn says, he understands all too well, having seen it throughout his entire career.

“I’ve been a big advocate of team-based learning, where you bring student teams together and direct their learning and you empower them through problem-based tasks, so that they take ownership and become autonomous learners in the longer term.

“The other thing is to have student representation on all our committees. The highest level of the university academic committee is the Senate, and there are two student representatives on our Senate, so they can speak openly on any matter that they want to highlight. I cannot stress the importance of keeping the students involved on multiple levels,” he says.

Although Taylor’s University appears to be on the correct path to achieving its goal of becoming globally recognised, Winn says challenges remain, adding that the most important thing is to do it the right way.

“So, moving forward — and that’s part of what I have to look at as part of my remit — is how do we grow with quality? We don’t want to grow badly, which would be disastrous. We have so many opportunities and we need to pick the right ones,” he explains.

At the moment, Winn says that the existing campus is reaching full capacity, which means that the institution has to think about where else it wants to extend its reach.

“45% of our students are international and the numbers are continuing to rise. People want to study in Malaysia — this is a good place to come and study in English. Having that strong cultural diversity helps to attract students.

“Universities are a force for good in the world. I grew up in a working-class family in the north of England, in Newcastle, and I was the first person in my family to go into higher education. It transformed my life and the lives of my children.

“As a schoolboy, I never thought I would end up here, working in Kuala Lumpur. Ultimately, I want to leave knowing that things are better than when I first joined, and for that, we just need to keep moving forward,” he says with a determined smile.