Page 29 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

Munusamy and Hashim, 2021

Currently, continuing and professional education is a major focus of polytechnics and
community colleges in Malaysia. Therefore, a Director of the International Office of a research
university in Klang Valley said that Malaysia needs assistance from IOs to enhance the TVET
and LLL studies at universities level. The director added that “in university TVET become very
less attractive, so something that the AEP can contribute to the Malaysian higher education
system on TVET and LLL”. This indicates that the support of the ASEM Education Secretariat
is vital to enhance collaboration in the field of TVET and LLL between Asia and Europe,
including Malaysia. Furthermore, the Director-General responsible for TVET and LLL at
MOHE also underlined the importance of collaboration on continuing and professional
education for upskilling and reskilling TVET lecturers in Malaysia. Besides that, MOHE’s
planning and research division senior officer expressed that the mutual understanding in the
AEP can create a pathway for Malaysian students to attend short-term TVET and LLL
attachment programmes in Asia and Europe to enhance their skills, knowledge and competence
that needed by industry and nations. However, LLL and TVET understanding and cooperation
are more easily conducted within regional cooperation as claimed by the same officer.

Discussion
The nature of ASEM as interregional cooperation, the networking power of ASEM and the
four priority themes of the AEP appear to be the key factors that support the internationalisation
of Malaysian higher education. Regionalism and strategic alliance were underlined as key
elements under the international and inter-regional cooperation that influence Malaysian higher
education internationalisation. The significance of regionalism on Malaysian higher education
internationalisation efforts through the support of the AEP is in line with the findings of
Cabanda, Tan, & Chou (2019). The findings showed that higher education development in the
Asian region was influenced by the development in the West or in particular Europe through
effective reflection by Asian countries. Similarly, the interview results revealed that the AEP
promotes regionalism through stakeholders and political level meetings such as ASEMMEs
and senior officials meetings. Dang (2017) specified that the AEP has created a pathway for
the development of higher education regionalism in ASEAN. This has encouraged ASEAN
countries, including Malaysia to redesign the landscape of higher education to internationalise
and compete with other regions. The strategic alliances can be a driving rationale and an
instrument for internationalisation (Knight, 2008) and it also can be a cooperative approach for
networking (Teichler, 2009). The strong competition among countries is usually accompanied
by strategic alliances with selected partners (Kehm & Teichler, 2007). Inter-regional
cooperation creates a platform for cooperation and collaboration in the field of higher education
with other partners in ASEM and with higher education institutions. The close cooperation
with other countries will create an avenue to attract more international students to Malaysia
(Arokiasamy, 2011) as interviewees stressed that through the AEP, Malaysia can attract more
international post-graduate students.

The interviews emphasised the importance of networks and networking. The networks and
networking are vital for the internationalisation of higher education in terms of interaction with
other countries, research cooperation, exchange of ideas, credit transfer system, establishment
of foreign branch campuses and intercultural understanding. The results are in line with the
suggestions of Angress & Wuttig (2018b, 2018a) that networking between ASEM partners will
enhance collaboration and strengthen dialogue and cooperation in higher education within the
four thematic priorities of the AEP. Girdzijauskaitė et al. (2019) reinforced that strong
networking between nations around the world can create multi-layered partnerships, including

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