Datuk Dr Noel Robert
Presented by Professor Peter Byers
Honorary Pro-Chancellor, I have pleasure in presenting Datuk Noel Robert for the award of an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University.
Dr Robert is the principal of YPC International College, a private college based in Kuala Lumpur. YPC College offers a range of courses across the disciplines of business and technology in collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University.
A chartered accountant by profession, Dr Robert worked in the audit and finance sector in multinational conglomerates for more than 10 years before entering the education sector via YPC International College.
Dr Robert is a graduate of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, a Chartered Accountant with the Malaysian Institute of Accountants, a Fellow of the Certified Public Accountants, Australia and has a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of South Australia, Adelaide.
He started his career in internal audit and finance with several large multinational companies. During the 1997 financial crisis he witnessed major restructuring and downsizing of companies and businesses, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs.
Witnessing first hand the human impact of such major disruption moved Dr Robert to find ways to help employees, mitigate their financial losses and job security through education.
YPC College was established with the primary objective of providing affordable educational opportunities especially to the lower income group. Dr Robert’s ethos is “everybody has a right to higher education and finance should not be a barrier”.
More than seventy percent of YPC College’s profit is given back as scholarships to poor and underprivileged students and YPC concentrates not only on the academically excellent students but also on those who are average performers but are held back by family and financial circumstances.
YPC College is also unique in that it serves and engages with the community, through training programs for teachers, students and underprivileged segments of society.
The College has added a new dimension to private education in Malaysia via “educational social responsibility” by providing free training for teachers and rewarding students who excel in examinations yearly with cash rewards and books.
Extending its social reach to the community beyond students, the College teamed up with another foundation in 2012 to provide free tailoring and baking skills to single mothers to enable them to create a livelihood.
In a private capacity and since 2012, Dr Robert works with an approved learning centre in Kuala Lumpur to teach refugee children basic English, basic mathematics, physical education and living skills to enable them to gain employment once they are resettled in other countries.
Dr Robert is an inspirational figurehead for an orgnanisation that is truly transforming the lives of its communities.
And so, for his sustained and outstanding contribution to those communities and for his commitment to educational opportunity, it is with great personal pleasure that I present Datuk Noel Robert for admission to our highest honour, as an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University.
