Taylor's PPE Celebrates Its First Award Recipients

24 Jun 2026

5 Min Read

Dr Deboshree Ghosh (Academic Contributor), The Taylor's Team (Editor)

IN THIS ARTICLE

In 2026, Taylor's University's Bachelor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics held its first awards ceremony, gathering to recognise the students who had, over the previous year, helped define what it means to study PPE in Malaysia.

The ceremony honoured both academic and non-academic achievement across the inaugural cohort, the April 2025 batch, who entered not only a new programme but an open question: what would PPE look like here, in this country, at this university? Their answer, by the account of those who taught them, was a coherent and encouraging one.

Portrait photo for Prof Dr Eddy, ED for Faculty of Business and Law

What Was Recognised

Academic awards were presented across all nine modules, covering the programme's three disciplines: philosophy, politics, and economics. A separate award recognised the overall top scorer for the year. But the ceremony extended beyond the classroom.

Four students were honoured for non-academic achievement: the founding members of the PPEople's Society, a student-led organisation established under the programme in May 2025. The society's president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer were recognised for their role in building the community infrastructure of the programme from scratch, something that required initiative well before a culture had fully formed.

Across the year, students participated in thirteen activities, spanning student-led events and wider university engagements. Each one, in the words of the faculty, contributed to developing communication, teamwork, and the capacity to operate in public-facing contexts.

A Programme Built on Excellence and Curiosity

PPE at Taylor's looks beyond high grades. Every applicant goes through an interview process designed to assess how they think, not only what they know. The interview prioritises curiosity, adaptability, and the willingness to engage with difficult questions from multiple angles rather than retreat to a single discipline.

The most telling moment of the ceremony was not the award presentations themselves, but the attendance. Most of the cohort came to support classmates who were receiving recognition. For a programme designed around small group discussion and cross-disciplinary thinking, that instinct felt like evidence the approach was working. "The PPE programme is highly selective," said Dr Deboshree Ghosh, Programme Director. "Seeing these students develop intellectually and personally, and then being recognised for their achievements, is incredibly rewarding."

A Guest Speaker Who Lived the Argument

Tony Pua Kiam Wee, a former Member of Parliament and Political Secretary to the Minister of Finance, delivered the keynote address. His career across parliament, finance, and public affairs offered a concrete illustration of what a PPE education enables in practice.

His central argument was direct: PPE prepares graduates for almost anything. The degree's value, he told the audience, lies not in domain knowledge but in the formation of certain intellectual habits. The habit of asking why, of refusing to take problems at face value. The capacity to examine an issue simultaneously from political, economic, philosophical, social, and ethical angles. The ability to learn quickly, which matters in a professional landscape where most substantive knowledge is acquired on the job.

Employers, he noted, increasingly value people who can adapt and absorb. "The true strength of PPE lies in cultivating the habit of asking 'why' questions," he told the audience, "encouraging deeper analysis rather than accepting issues at face value."

The Graduates a Complex World Needs

The keynote gave the ceremony a wider frame. The questions PPE asks its students to engage with, on power, value, distribution, governance, and ethics, are central to the world they are entering. The argument was that a degree built around those questions produces something employers are actively looking for: people who can learn quickly, think across disciplines, and ask better questions than the ones they were given.

Taylor's PPE draws on an Industry Advisory Panel that includes figures including Khairy Jamaluddin, former Cabinet minister; Fraziali Ismail, Assistant Governor of Bank Negara; Nick Khaw, Head of Research at Khazanah Berhad; and Chen Li-Kai, former Country Managing Partner of McKinsey Malaysia, practitioners working at exactly the intersections the programme trains students to navigate.The degree's flexibility, across consulting, public policy, finance, research, and public service, prepares graduates to contribute meaningfully wherever policy, people, and resources converge.

Looking Forward

The first cohort leaves behind more than a set of award recipients. For Dr Deboshree, what they have demonstrated is a foundation the programme can build on. "It would be an even greater success for the programme if excellence becomes more widespread across the cohort," she said. "The greatest achievement would be creating an environment where excellence is not concentrated in a few individuals but is reflected across the entire PPE community."

Taylor's Bachelor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Honours) is Malaysia's first and only PPE programme, offered by the School of Law and Governance. Intakes are in February, April, and September. Learn more about the programme here.

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