Page 33 - AEI Insights 2019 - Vol. 5, Issue 1

Munusamy and Hashim, 2019

Knight, 2004a; Qiang, 2003). This rationale also emphasised the “individual development as a
local, national and international citizen with intercultural understanding and communication
skills” (Jang, 2009, pg.13). Intercultural understanding can also be a tool to eradicate any
prejudice and be a factor for building a peaceful society. As an example, the international
students studying in Norway have adopted Norwegian culture and contributed to the
development of diversity and the open-minded society in Norway (Salas, 2014). In the case of
Malaysia, efforts to build a peaceful society have been in place since independence. For that
reason, international students have the opportunity to learn from Malaysia and can also
contribute to further enhancing the community development in Malaysia and in their home
country.

The main aim of the academic rationale is to enhance the teaching and learning process as well
as achieve an excellence status in research and scholarly activities (Jeptoo & Razia, 2012;
Qiang, 2003). The respondents constantly stated that teaching and research are a major focus
of Malaysian higher education internationalisation. Through teaching and research, Malaysia
continues to develop partnerships with foreign higher education institutions for quality
curriculum development and research enhancement. Despite that, Knight (2004a) believes that
higher education sectors have “always been competitive in trying to achieve high academic
standards and more recently an international profile” (p. 21). In line with that, there is a number
of international recognitions that have been received by Malaysian higher education system
such as the best performer in national policies on quality assurance and recognition. Another
two important elements underlined in the academic rationale for Malaysia were ranking and
quality of higher education. Van der Wende, (2001) found that quality improvement becomes
a significantly important argument for the internationalisation policies. Conversely, quality
becomes a major concern to improve ranking and to attract more international students to
Malaysia. But there is no special attention given to ranking in terms of higher education
internationalisation. Knight (2004) listed ranking and competitiveness of higher education as
one of the important elements under academic rationale. In Malaysian higher education,
ranking was emphasised under successful internationalisation and it helps to strengthen the
quality of higher education. The quality of higher education improves the ranking. As an
example, a study by Al-Zubaidi (2013) shows that 45% of the international students from the
sample of 163 respondents chose to study in Malaysia due to academic standard, university
reputation and quality of higher education.

The political rationale is “closely linked to issues regarding a country’s status and role as an
independent nation in the world” (Jiang, 2010, p. 884). Malaysia is generally politically stable.
Therefore, internationalisation of higher education is not much influenced by political matters.
Still, the political mandate will be needed to achieve 250,000 international students by 2025
and for Malaysia to attain international higher education hub status. The target for international
students is deliberated under the political rationale due to MOE’s stakeholders aspiration
through the new higher education blueprint MEB-HE (2015-2025) (MOE, 2015). This is also
supported by Education Malaysia offices abroad assigned to bring more international students
Malaysia (de Wit, Hunter, Howard, & Egron-Polak, 2015). The same scholars also mentioned
that public universities Malaysia have autonomy to recruit and manage post-graduate
international students. Beerkens (2004), found that political mandate was used for the
international exchange of students, scholarships regulation and management of international
students. The political mandate at national level (Ministry) is not only vital for the management
of international students in Malaysia, but also crucial for the welfare of Malaysian students
abroad in terms of scholarships and sustainability of national cultural identity. One of the
important components observed under the political rationale was the strategic alliances through
networking. Wendy (2006) anticipated that strategic alliances rise across national borders due

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