Page 31 - AEI Insights 2019 - Vol. 5, Issue 1

Munusamy and Hashim, 2019

The main concern of respondents under this rationale was on the strategies to enhance the
quality of education level and prosperity for the locals. Hence, the interview results on the
social and cultural rationale also discovered some negative viewpoints. Administrators
indicated that there is no study that has been conducted so far to evaluate the rationale for
internationalisation in terms of social and cultural aspects.

The Academic Rationale
More than 50% of respondents concurred that the academic rationale drives
internationalisation. “Leading factor as far as the concern of internationalisation it has to be
academic” and “we cannot run away from other three rationales, but the very important
rationale is academic” mentioned by several administrators of research universities. The major
elements underlined were ranking, quality and competitiveness, the landscape of higher
education system, teaching and research and cross-border higher education. Although ranking
is influenced by the political rationale, an administrator viewed that “ranking is the product of
successful internationalisation in term of research, employability and teaching” (Senior
Officer, department under MOE). Teaching and research have been identified as a major sub-
rationale under the academic rationale. In terms of teaching the focus was to develop an
internationally recognised curriculum. This intention is facilitated by the presence of
international staff and lecturers at public and private higher education institutions and at branch
campuses. “It is important for international lecturers to improve our higher education system
and change the mind-sets of local researchers” stated by an administrator of a research
university. Furthermore, “Malaysia is moving from teacher centric to students centric”
(Administrator, Research University) by adapting to international teaching methods. 50% of
respondents stated that effective research collaboration, publication and outputs has stimulated
Malaysian higher education internationalisation. “Research is nothing without
internationalisation especially on scientific and syntactic technology” (Senior Officer,
department under MOE). Internationalisation plays an important role in joint research activities
between local and international institutions. A respondent from the top research university in
Malaysia stated that “we encourage research internationalisation mainly because we want our
researchers to produce high-quality research work”.

The competitiveness of the Malaysian higher education system is another imperative element
that pushes internationalisation. Competitiveness arises from the local higher education
institutions rating system by the Ministry, internationally recognised quality assurance system
and the highly ranked international branch campuses in Malaysia. Cooperation with
internationally recognised quality assurance bodies such as UK-NARIC (Senior Officer,
Agency under MOE) brought about internationalisation of various mobility programmes and
qualifications framework development. Several respondents viewed that the competitiveness
of the Malaysian higher education system is enhanced through the initiatives implemented
under the higher education blueprint.
Besides the internal factors, Malaysia embarked on internationalisation due to the impact of
external factors such as cross-border higher education. This external factor has allowed for
transnational higher education, transnational and international research, international lecturers
and staff presence and cooperation with foreign higher education sectors. One of the major
elements expected from these factors is international academic standards. A senior
administrator of a research university declared that “research universities try to copy or
emulate the international academic standards which are being used or exit in or from a foreign
university”. In addition, some courses at higher education institutions received international
recognition; “11 or 12 subjects in universities are ranked at top 50 in the world” (Senior

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