Higher education

The Guardian reported on 2 July 2012 that in response to the costs of sending students abroad, the then Malaysian Government developed a strategy to improve its higher education (HE) sector, transforming it into a regional hub for international universities. During the 1990s, the government realized while (re)structuring its educational policies that it would not be able to provide quality and accessible higher education to a considerable proportion of its population through its own state funded public institutions. To that end, the Malaysian government came up with proactive policies that opened up opportunities for foreign higher educational institutions and also Malaysian educational entrepreneurs to create and offer further educational opportunities for Malaysians students, in addition attracting foreign students to study inMalaysia. The ultimate goal was to makeMalaysia a regional hub for higher education in South-East Asia and beyond.

The Educational Act of 1996 created a legal base and opened the doors for a much wider participation of foreign institutions to invest inMalaysia. These policy efforts have shown encouraging results. By 1999 at least 70 institutions of higher education from theUKhad established some form of collaborative arrangement with a Malaysian private institution. The number of foreign students inMalaysiagrew by 36.8 % between 1997 and 2003.

The policy to internationalize higher education was crafted with six core aspects: student mobility, staff mobility, academic programs, research and development, social integration and community development. The policy’s ambition was to enroll 200,000 international students by the year 2020.Malaysiais one of the Asian countries that invests highly in science, technology and research. Over the years, there has been a growing number of science and technology research centers and universities in the country. This demonstrates the serious efforts of the country to develop the sector.

Within this local and global context, Internationalizing Higher Education in Malaysia: Understanding, Practices and Challenges, edited by Prof. Tham Siew Yean, is a timely contribution by Malaysian academics from Universiti Kebangsan Malaysia (UKM) and Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences, and offers critical insights for both general readers and policy researchers. The book is an outcome of research carried out by scholars between 2008 and 2010, with a focus on a number of themes that include globalization and social transformation.

Chapter one introduces the reader to the emergence of Malaysian higher education policies and their essentials (p.6) since 1980s. Prof. Yean gives an account of the transformation ofMalaysiafrom a ‘student sending country’ to a ‘student receiving country’ over the course of 30 years. In the 1970s, there were only 3 public universities inMalaysia. The number grew to 20 public universities, and more than 450 private institutions by 2011. Chapter one and two together provide adequate evidence of howMalaysiabecame a global player in the world market, by accounting for 2 percent of fee paying international students.

The remaining chapters are based on the empirical data collected by the contributors to this book. The important findings from this book are very valuable for further policy discourse on higher education: understanding the what and why of higher education internationalization, as there exists a huge diversity of understanding among students, staff and leaders of both public and private higher education institutions. Hence, further discussion is warranted. Another question rightly posed in the book is whether internationalization of higher education is still a case of ‘cherry picking’? Are we going after quantity, at the expense of quality? (p.129).

What I missed though were the politics of higher education inMalaysia. Higher education is a federal subject and hence controlled or dominated by federal government interests and political agenda. But interestingly, individual states (for example, Penang) have also shown an interest in becoming educational hubs as part of the national agenda. The book in that sense fails to provide a picture of state and federal relations when it comes to higher education and competition among states, for both national and fee paying international students. This lacuna could be due to the sensitive nature of the subject under research.

The book to some extent states the difficulties involved in conducting research on higher education and internationalization. Prof. Yean writes “in general it is quite difficult to conduct surveys and collect primary data inMalaysiaas respondents are by and large, wary of the motivations behind such surveys” (p.132). As a researcher in this arena, I do face similar challenges, whilst fully realizing for that matter that data is socially constructed in any society. Malaysia’s proactive policy support given to the private higher education players is a significant step in bringing about internationalization and makingMalaysiaa major educational hub in Asia. However, it remains unclear whether public and private institutions are in competition with each other, or if they in fact complement one another. This has led to policy distortions and may affect Malaysia’s ambitions, keeping in mind the other regional players likeSingaporeand Vietnam that are making use of the opportunities arising with globalization. Unfortunately, recent talk of merging the Higher Education Ministry back into the Ministry of Education, may hamper the attention given to higher education and its internationalization during the last two decades. Having said this, I highly recommend this important book for any reader who is interested in higher education and policy, educational hubs, challenges of internationalization issues in general, and particularly inMalaysia.