[8] It has since grown into the largest institution of higher education in Malaysia as measured by physical infrastructure, faculty and staff, and student enrollment.

[16] Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) began as the RIDA (Rural & Industrial Development Authority) Training Centre (Malay: Dewan Latehan RIDA), and was inspired by Onn Jaafar, the founder and former president of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

The idea was conceived as a result of his study visit to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1951 to look into its rural development programme.

The training centre conducted pre-university courses, business skills training, and several external professional courses offered by established international bodies, such as the London Chamber of Commerce, the Australian Chartered Secretaryship, the Australian Society of Accountants, and the British Institute of Management.

After the Federation of Malaysia was created in 1963, the training centre began to admit native students from Sabah and Sarawak, and more academic programmes were offered.

In 1964, the RIDA Training Centre held its first convocation and 50 graduates were awarded certificates by Tun Abdul Razak, the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The name change meant that the college no longer operated under RIDA and instead became the most important unit of the MARA Training Division.

Council of Trust for the Indigenous People), which was founded under the leadership of Tan Sri Arshad Ayub, took over and strengthened the role and responsibilities of RIDA.

When the British Institute of Management ceased conducting external examinations in 1966, MARA College began running its own Diploma in Business Studies.

Acknowledging the fact that education holds the key to positive social engineering processes, ITM made education easily accessible primarily to the bumiputera Malays and indigenous bumiputera of the Malay peninsula (such as Jakun, Senoi) and East Malaysia (such as the Kadazan-Dusun, Melanau, and Dayak).

However, realising the importance of other complementary nation-building fields, it also included a repertoire of other salient "management and humanities-based" fields such as business studies, hotel and catering management, mass communications, public administration, law, secretarial science, and art and design.

ITM was also given the power to confer degrees up to Doctor of Philosophy level, the unique power to establish courses and campuses abroad with permission from the Minister of Education, and to conduct business, invest in shares, set up companies and engage in commercial research.

To improve staff accountability, the institute was allowed to impose a surcharge, and the procedural rights of students in disciplinary proceedings were strengthened.

[7] In August 1999, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced the change in name of ITM to Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).

[21] With such acknowledgement from the government, the institution was heavily restructured to consolidate the university's resources for optimum productivity.

The founding of UiTM Library began with the establishment of the RIDA Training Centre at Jalan Othman, Petaling Jaya, in 1956.

It was initially known as RIDA Library, and was stocked with reading materials for accounting, bookkeeping, and London Chamber of Commerce (LCC) examination preparatory courses.

The library was later moved to the ground floor of the Administrative Department annex to accommodate the increase of users and collections.

The library collections at the time consisted only of books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and other foreign publications in English.

All colleges have access to free Wi-Fi service, which is part of the integrated wireless internet connection for the university itself.

As the main campus receives an increase in student enrolment each year, there are constraints on the residential college facilities.

[29] As of May 2015, 470 programmes offered by UiTM include degrees at doctoral, master, bachelor, diploma, and certificate levels.

[30] In 1973, UiTM (then ITM) established ITM-Off Campus to provide opportunities for working adults to further and obtain a quality tertiary education.

Classes are held after office hours on weekdays and on weekends, and courses are patterned after the full-time mainstream programs.

The UiTM R&D Roadmap specifically emphasised increasing the number of principal investigators and students to publish in Web of Science and Scopus journals.

[37] In 2014, UiTM's Malaysian Institute of Transport (MITRANS) was conferred as HICoE for the niche area of Halalan Toyyibban Supply Chain.

[54] The university holds a number of formal links with institutions from around the world to share teaching and research and facilitate staff and student exchanges.

UiTM graduates have found success in a wide variety of fields, and have served at the heads of diverse institutions both in the public and private sector.