Page 32 - AEI Insights 2019 - Vol. 5, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 5, Issue 1, 2019

Director, department under MOE). Foreign countries requested assistance from Malaysian
experts to develop their country’s higher education policies. Malaysian post-doctoral students
are allowed to supervise PhD students abroad. “It shows that internationalisation process has
been successful in making Malaysian higher education system visible in the world” (Senior
Director, department under MOE).
Up to 70% of respondents conveyed that internationalisation initiatives have enhanced the
quality of higher education. This is supported by a respondent who stated that “….in 2017 a
British Council survey on Shape of Global Higher Education: National Policies Framework
for International Engagement has named Malaysia as the best performer in national policies
on quality assurance and recognition, along with Germany, Australia, and United of
Kingdom” (Senior Officer, agency under MOE). A senior administrator of a research university
further stated that “for an example when we do research with Imperial College, Imperial is the
one going to mention our name in their circle”. This shows that internationalisation efforts
have pushed Malaysia to focus on research, publication and curriculum development to gain
maximum benefit and to enhance the quality of higher education.
Although only 50% of administrators mentioned that the academic rationale influences the
internationalisation initiatives in Malaysia, “international students choose Malaysia because
of the quality of higher education” (Administrator, Research University) and this is directly
related to the academic rationale. In addition, “in terms of educational quality,
internationalisation offer great opportunities for the higher education sector to remain
dynamic, keeping up with the current trend in teaching, learning and scholarly activities as
well as tapping rich academic diversity for mutual benefits” (Senior Officer, agency under
MOE).

Discussion
The four types of rationale as introduced by Knight (1997, pg. 9; 2004, pg. 4) and (de Wit,
2013, p.17) have been a stimulus in the internationalisation of the Malaysian higher education
system. The advantages and outputs of internationalisation can be seen through examining
these four as stated by Knight (2004; 2007). The respondents ranked the four types of rationale
for Malaysian higher education internationalisation as follows: 1. economic, 2. socio-cultural,
3. academic and 4. political. Income generation becomes an important motivation for
Malaysian higher education to pursue internationalisation under the economic rationale.
Chankseliani (2017) found that in the United Kingdom higher education system, the economic
rationale played a different role by generating swift income from fees and living expenses for
the higher education institutions and for the government. Likewise, the interview results
proved that Malaysia also emphasises income generation through revenue from international
students and their families’ expenses. Moreover, in Europe, the internationalisation policies
and efforts are dominated by the economic rationale at institutional and national levels (van
der Wende, 2001). Hence, a study by Tham (2013) supported that internationalisation effort in
Malaysian higher education is primarily motivated by the economic rationale. Although the
human capital development is another important sub-element under the economic rationale
(Tham, 2013), respondents highlighted that besides human capital development, the economic
growth through income is vital for Malaysia. Therefore, the focus is on the recruitment of more
post-graduate international students via various internationalisation initiatives.
In terms of the socio-cultural rationale, the study revealed that Malaysia gives priority to sustain
and maintain the national cultural identity in internationalisation efforts. But the recent
important element was the enhancement of the student experiences (Chankseliani, 2017;

32