In higher education he and the formation of special free academic zones in malaysia

Srinivasa Rao, distinguish three phases in the evolution o f Malaysian higher educational policy: 1 The pre-NEP phase 1957-1970, characterized by a post-colonial nation-building policy a

JOINT-PROGRAMS

IN HIGHER EDUCATION (HE) AND THE FORMATION OF SPECIAL FREE ACADEMIC ZONES IN MALAYSIA

Ngô Tự Lập, Dr.

In te rn a tio n a l S c h o o l- V N U H anoi, V ie tn a m

Abstract

A Joint-Program is usually seen only as a mode of education technology transfer or international education business The aim of this paper is to show that in the special historical context of Malaysia during the last decades of the 20th century, it could have deep social-political and cultural consequences, playing a role similar to that of the Special Free Economic Zones In other words, JPs are intrinsically Special Free Academ ic Zones6

K e y w o rd s : Higher Education, Internationalization, Joint-Program, Malaysia,

A s a particular model of commercial presence, a way of internationalization, a JP has two major underlying motivations: (1) the need of the domestic market for internationalized human resources; and (2) revenue seeking - first of all for the foreign providers, especially those from Australia, the UK, and the

US, the countries with long traditions o f corporate universities, but also for their domestic partner institutions

The successful development of JPs can eventually lead to strengthening the possibility and capacity o f receiving international students, which finally turns those HE importing countries into exporters One example of such a country is Singapore, where 75% of students in private institutions, many of them international students, pursue their study in JPs Malaysia is another example, although less successful But in some cases, JPs may have other implications In post-colonial Malaysia, or in transitional Vietnam and China, for example, JPs have served as a way to avoid socio-political barriers created by the specific historical contexts In these cases, the traditional functions of higher education are severely limited by socio-political, racial or ideological obstacles, and JPs, and internationalization o f HE in general, are possible ways to solve the problems presented in transitional periods In these countries, JPs play a role similar to the role o f Special Free Economic Zones (SFEZs)

6 At the Forum of Vietnam's young researchers in Hà Nội (11/2007), I first used the term SFUZ (Special Free University Zones) However, later at I thought that SFAZ (Special Free Academic Zones) is a better term and I have used on different occasion, as at ASCOJA conference (Yangoon, 11/2009), or at APEC SEAMEO Language Seminar (Singapore, 03/2010) (Ngô Tự Lập).

International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: North-South Perspectives

2.1 Brief Accounts of Malaysian History

Occupying a peninsula stretching down from the South of Thailand, Malaysia is situated at the crossroads

n f m f i m o f r a n c n n r t o n H t r a H c s l i n o G h o tiA /c s c s n fh iz t P a c t o n H t h c s \A /£ 2 c f Q : ■ ' / o r n o H ' / i r ' o / m r i i H r s r s

U i i i i c t i i u i i i o u c i i i o [ J U i I a i Ỉ U I Ỉ C Ỉ U Ỉ 7 i l l U c t W c c i i u IC? L a o i a i i u l i i u v v o o i V y a i i c u O u v e i l r i a U V i p a i o U i u c n

Peninsula) by the ancient Indians, the peninsula was shown on Ptolemy's map as the "Golden Khersonese" The first foreigners who came to the Malay Peninsula were perhaps Chinese and Indian traders, who established commercial ports in the region as early as in the first centuries o f Common Era

It is therefore not surprising that Chinese and Indian influences are appeared very early and are strong in Malaysian culture During the first centuries, the Malays adopted Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sanskrit Starting in the 15th century, the population o f the peninsula gradually accepted Islam, and by the 16th century Islam became the dominant religion o f the Malay people

For centuries, trading ships between Europe and East and South East Asian countries have had to go through the Straits o f Malacca Because trade between Asia and Europe was very important, many world powers, including India in ancient times and the European empires in recent centuries, competed with each other to control the Straits The Straits were successively controlled first by the Indians (400BCE- 539AD), natives Malays (1445-1511), Portuguese (1511-1647), and the Dutch (1647-1834) “None of these nations desired to colonize the whole o f the area but only to control this important shipping port The British gained a toehold in Malaysia in 1786 when they developed a settlem ent on Penang Island (at the northern beginning of the Straits of Malacca) and then in 1819 when they developed a settlement at Singapore (on the most southern tip of the Malayan Peninsula, at the southern end of the Straits of

Malacca” (Pope, M ark et al., 2002)

In 1824, the British took control of Malacca following the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 From that moment, the British influence gradually increased By 1826 the British took control o f Penang, Malacca, Singapore, and the island of Labuan, forming what they called “the crown colony of the Straits Settlements” By the beginning of the 20th century, they had essentially taken control of Pahang, Selangor, Perak, and Negeri Sembilan Although the British control was usually indirect, through the influences of their “advisers" on

the Malay rulers (Tregoning, quoted by Pope e ta l.,) the colonialists faced increasing nationalism In 1957,

the British were forced to give Malaysia its independence

During the 1960s and 1970s, the focus of post-colonial Malaysia’s governm ent was to strengthen national identity by instituting Malay language (Bahasa Melayu) as the national and official language, and then by adopting the New Economic Policy (NEP) with strong favors given to the Malay ethnics Both policies faced strong opposition from the non-Malays Nonetheless, the country managed to develop significantly from being an essentially agrarian country into an industrial country by 1990

2.2 Brief history of Malaysian Higher Education

2,2.1 The B irth o f M o d e rn T e rtia ry E d u c a tio n in M a la ysia

Secular education in Malaysia was largely developed during the British colonial time However, tertiary education was never a focus in the country until relatively recently

The website of the University o f Malaya (UM), the oldest modern university in Malaysia, claims that it was established in 1905 In fact, UM started as a medical school under the name “The Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School" (1905-1912), and then “King Edward VII School of Medicine” (1912 - 1921), with the aim to produce medical assistants in government hospitals In 1921, the status of the “King Edward VII School o f Medicine" was elevated, and it was called the “King Edward VII College of Medicine” until 1949, when it was merged with the “ Raffles College” (1928 - 1949) to form the University

of Malaya (Raj, Anantha A Arokiasamy, 2010; Website o f UM) However, this university was located in

Singapore and, until 1959, and there was only one o f two campuses of UM in Kuala Lumpur In 1961, both the governments of Malaysia and Singapore passed the legislation to make the UM their national

university Since then, the campus in Kuala Lumpur remained with the old name, the University of Malaya, while the campus in Singapore became the University of Singapore (now National University of Singapore) For this reason, G Sivalingam argues that “at the time of independence in 1957 there were

no full-fledged universities in Malaya." The University o f Malaya was thus established in 1962, and until

1969 it was the only university in Malaysia (Sivalingam, 2010)

2.2.2 Phases o f H igher Educational Policy Evolution in Malaysia

Most authors, fo r example s Srinivasa Rao, distinguish three phases in the evolution o f Malaysian higher

educational policy: 1) The pre-NEP phase (1957-1970), characterized by a post-colonial nation-building policy aimed at strengthening national identity and unity; 2) The NEP phase (1970-1990), characterized

by affirmative policies aimed at addressing what the Malays believed to be an “ethnic imbalance" between

the Bumiputeras (sons of the soil) and the non-Malays; and 3) The Post-NEP phase (since 1990),

characterized by a shift from affirmative policies to neo-liberal policies that eventually led to the rapid development of private sector higher education, along with the proliferation of international cooperative programs Molly N.N Lee agrees about the first two phases, but considers the third phase after 1990 to actually be better understood as two distinctive phases-nam ely a phase from 1990 to 2000 and a phase from 2000 to present

During the first and second phases, i.e from 1957 to 1990, the development of higher education in Malaysia progressed very slowly, which was partly because post-colonial Malaysia’s economy was underdeveloped and largely labor intensive, but also due to government policy The focus of Malaysian education system back then was on Primary and Secondary education, but not higher education -

remember that before 1970 University o f Malaya was the only university in Malaysia (Sivalingam, 2010)

Another reason fo r the slow development of higher education in this period was the limited budget from the state that kept tight control of higher education - this is not peculiar to Malaysia

After the establishment of the UM, the first university in the country, in 1962, it took 7 years before the second university, the Science University o f Mafaya (Universiti Sains Malaysia - USM), was established

in 1969 That was followed by the establishment of the National University o f Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - UKM, 1970), the Agricultural University of Malaysia (Universiti Pertanican Malaysia - UPM, 1971), and the Techonology University of Malaysia (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia - UTM, 1972) In total, by 1975, there were 5 universities in Malaysia

The 1990-2000 period marks a pragmatic shift in Malaysia's higher education policy, and Malaysia itself, towards neo-liberalism Among the most important developments in this period was the “Private Higher Educational Institutions Act" (1996), an Act that forms the legal frameworks for the development of private higher education The event was very significant, as is demonstrated by the fact that the first proposal to

set up a private university, the Merdeka University, was denied by the governm ent in 1969 (Sivalingam,

2010) After 1990, private sector higher education developed very fast within a mere decade By 2000, the

number of private institutions (universities and colleges) reached 704, although that was followed by a modest decline to 559 in 2005 The total number of private and public higher educational institutions in

Malaysia increased from 295 in 1995 to 630 in 2005 (Sivalingam, 2010) The development of the private

sector played a very important role in raising gross higher education enrolment ratios from 11% in 1995 to

32% in 2008 (M olly N.N Lee and Stephen Healy, 2006; International Bureau o f Education)

Since 2000, the Malaysian higher system has evolved towards internationalization With an aim to improve the quality of tertiary education and to turn Malaysia into a regional educational hub, in 2004 the Ministry o f Higher Education was established Substantial efforts have been made to promote the Malaysian higher education system

International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: North-South Perspectives

Table 1: Growth o f tertiary institutions

Colleges/community

colleges

Source: Malaysia, 2006, Ninth Malaysia Plan 2006-10, Econom ic Planning Unit, Prime M inister’s

Department, Putrajaya, p 245 (quoted by Rao, 2007)

Another way of characterizing the history of Malaysia’s higher education is offered by Molly N.N Lee, who, as quoted by Anantha Raj A Arokiasamy, distinguishes four periods in the history of Malaysian tertiary education: “Education for Elites", “ Education for Affirmative Action” , “Education as and for Business” , and “Education for global competition.” Raj describes the historical picture of Malaysian higher

education by a table that we have slightly modified, and use herein as Table 2.

Table 2: H istorical periods o f Malaysian higher education developm ent

Education for Elites

Education for Affirmative Action

Education as

and fo r

Business

Education for Global Competition

1

institution (University of

Malaya)

Establishment of other state- controlled universities

Establishment of Private

Universities

Establishment of MOHE

Primary and Secondary Education

Ethnic quota Admission

Market oriented, Foreign

campuses, Corporatization

of public -institution

Increasing internationalizati on; Research universities

issues

Establishment of Malaysian Qualification Agency

International recruitment

Source: Raj, 2010

It is clear from the above historical picture, that the 1990s represent a specific context, where the principles of neo-liberalism were juxtaposed directly against those of affirmative policies It is in this context, as is demonstrated in the following pages, that joint international program s came to be used widely by private colleges as a solution for resolving some of the racial, language and economic conflicts

in Malaysia’ higher education system

ACTION

3.1 Language Policy

In late 1950s and the 1960s, as was the case with many other post-colonial developing countries, Malaysia wanted to strengthen its national identity and unity This target was thought to be achievable by instituting Bahasa Melayu, the language of the Malays, as the national and official language o f the country

The idea of establishing a National Language was born before independence and, as Michael Leigh and Belinda Lip note, “was a source fo r political debates and manifestos, for the 1955 general election It was revived again from 1964 when Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party pushed fo r a “Malaysian Malaysia", which represented a clear contrast to what he saw as the ruling Alliance Party’s preference fo r a “Malay

Malaysia" (Leigh and Lip, 304) In 1959, i.e only two years after Malaysia achieved independence, a

special organ called “Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka” was established with the authority “to develop and enrich the national language; to promote literary growth and creative talents; to publish books in the

national language.” (Hassan Ahmad, quoted b y Gill, 2001)

But the establishment o f Malay as national and official language was perceived differently by different

ethnic groups The primary tension was between the Malays and native Malaysians, called "bumiputeras"

(sons of the soil), from one side, and the Chinese and Indians from the other Malaysia was and still is a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious nation, in which the Malays form the largest ethnic group, but their majority is very slight In 1957, at the time of regaining independence, the population of the country was comprised of three major groups: the Malays (49.78%), the Chinese (37.1%) and the Indians (11.0%)

o f the population (Gill, 2001) Since that time, the proportion between ethnic groups has evolved slightly

in favor of the Malays and by 2004, it was as follows: M a la y 50.4% , C hinese 2 3 7 % , in d ig e n o u s 11%,

In d ia n s 7.1% , o th e rs 7.8% (C /A F a ctb o o k, 2 0 1 1 )

But the d eep o rig in o f th e se e th n ic te n s io n s lies not m ainly in the p o p u la tio n p e rce n ta g e s, but

ra th e r in th e w a y d iffe re n t e th n ic g ro u p s have p e rce ive d th e m s e lv e s in the new in d e p e n d e n t

c o u n try G ill (2 0 0 1 ) n o tic e s : “Even though in demographic terms, the percentage o f Malays was only minimally larger than the other ethnic groups, it was their political clout and the fact that they considered themselves as “sons o f the soil” in contrast with the other ethnic groups who were of im m igrant ancestry, largely from China and India, that gave them not only symbolic but also concrete power to influence

decision-making on language and nation” (Gill, 2001)

The language policy was most controversial when it was implemented in the educational system The Indians and Chinese opposed strongly the requirement of using Bahasa Melayu as the sole language in all educational institutions from primary up to higher education These two ethnic groups consider education in their own languages as a way to preserve their cultural identity According to United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (UCSCAM), also widely known as Dong Jiao Zong (DJZ), the

“final goal” of Malaysia’s Government is to wipe out all Chinese-medium and Tamil-medium schools The Chinese and Indians also opposed the idea of “Malay Malaysia" enthusiastically promoted by the Malays During the colonial time, most of the English language schools were located in cities and the great majority of students were non-Malays Most Malays lived in the rural areas and if some o f them attended school, they likely learned in Malay language For this reason, “English was already then the language o f economic opportunity and social mobility and this situation resulted in "an identification of a racial group

International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: North-South Perspectives

with a particular type o f vocation or industry and hence its identification with wealth or poverty " (Asmah,

1987: 63, quoted by Gill) In the so called “educational agendas of nation-building, national identity and

unity” , the leaders of the independent Malaysia attempted to build a new educational system, in which Bahasa Malayu was the sole medium of instruction, and English is considered as nothing more than a

foreign language (Gill 2001)

However, in fact, the change was not as rapid as the hard Malay nationalists wanted In many schools and also at the UM, the only institution of higher education in the country, English remained the language

of instruction until the end o f the 1960s (Leigh and Lip, 304) According to Saran Kaur Gill, at the UM,

since 1965 a bilingual system was created, in which Bahasa Melayu was used as the instructional language for subjects in the liberal arts and English remained the instructional language for subjects of scientific and technological nature As planned, this bilingual system would eventually become monolingual, with Bahasa Melayu as the only instruction medium This process was completed in 1983,

when all subjects were conducted in Bahasa Melayu in all public universities (Gill, 2001)

Meanwhile, the frustrated Malay nationalists acclaimed “ that political and economic powers are

concentrated in the hands of those who speak the more favored language.” (Kelman, 1971: 35, quoted by

Gill) By “the favored language” they meant English, spoken mainly by the Chinese and the Indians and

few elite Malays They called for rectifying this social and economic imbalance by enhancing the use of Bahasa Melayu as the national - official, educational, and administrative - language Their frustration eventually led to the May 13, 1969 racial riots, “which was perhaps the most significant event in post Independence Malaysia that changed the course of not only the educational system but also the course

of Malaysian society, econom ics and politics (Sivallingam, 2007)

After the racial riots in 1969, the institution of Bahasa Malayu as national language was reinforced and

the New Economic Policy was introduced These policies have had great impact on Malaysian society Since then, despite the fact that the country has evolved from being an agrarian economy to an industrial nation, its socio-ethnical contradictions still remain even today

3.2 NEP and Affirmative Action in Higher Education

After the 1969 riots, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced in 1972 The aim o f NEP is to restore what the nationalist leaders see as “delayed equality’ by enhancing the status of “the sons of the soil” considered to be “discriminated in their own country in terms of employment and

education."{Sivalingam, 2007) “ Implementation of the NEP was linked to the introduction of the Sedition

TKctTwRich prevents anyone from q u e stio n in g lh e speciãrrigtĩts ancTprivileges accorded to the Malays,

and the right of non-Malays to citizenship” (Leigh and Lip, 301).

The arguments of the Malay nationalists were based on the fact that most of Bumiteras were employed in agricultural sector, while the non-Malays in skilled jobs with incomes higher and faster-growing than those

of the Bumiteras In 1970, the Bumiteras owned only 2.4 percent of equity in the country, while the Chinese owned nearly one third The imbalance was also reflected in higher education in which 49.6% of the student population was Chinese, while the bumiteras and Indians comprised 43.3% and 6.0% of the

student population respectively (Rao, 2007) This imbalance was considered to be unacceptable for the

Malay nationalists

The 1970-1990 period is characterized by accelerated Malayanization o f the educational system A new education policy was also adopted, “whereby English-language schools were converted to Malay beginning from the first year o f primary school in 1970 and ending with the last year of high school in 1982” Naturally, this process would eventually lead to effectively abolishing English as an instructional

medium in higher education by mid-1985s (Leigh and Lip, 304).

Another important development in the Malaysian education system was the establishment of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 1970, which aimed to meet the needs o f the Malays for higher education The name “ National University o f Malaysia” Itself, as well as the requirement of using Bahasa

Meiayu as the only medium o f instruction reflect the highly political nature o f the decision After 1970, all public universities were required to use Bahasa Melayu as the only medium of instruction

Since 1971, the Malaysian government has imposed a racial enrolment quota system (Selvaratnam 1988,

quoted b y M cBurnie and Ziguras, 2001) Officially, this quota system is designed to ensure that the

composition o f Bumiputeras, Chinese and Indians and other students in universities reflects the overall ethnic composition of the country But the Malaysian government never specified a concrete proportion Moreover, many Malays see the quota system as a means to make up for unequal opportunities in the

other directions in the past” ( Young et at 1980, 55, quoted by Sivalingam) Apart from the quota system,

other measures to promote higher education fo r the Malays have included a generous system of

scholarships offered by the Federal and sta te governments, the Matriculation pathway, created to

increase higher education entry assess for the Bumiteras

The results o f this new educational policy has been a sudden and steep increase of the Malay share in

enrollment in dom estic educational institutions, from 49.6% in 1970 to 65% in 1975 (Sivalingam) and at the same tim e the rapid decrease of the non-Malay share from 50.4% in 1970 to 35.0% in 1975 (Tabb 3)

is only 50%

Table 3: Proportion o f Enrollm ent in Tertiary Education by Race (1970-1988):

Sources: 1) Malaysia, 1981 Fourth Malaysia Plan 1981-85, Kuala Lumpur, National Printing

Department, p 352; 2) Malaysia, 1986 Fifth Malaysia Plan 1986-90, Kuala Lumpur, National Printing Department, p 49; 3) Malaysia, 1989 Mid-term Review o f the Fifth Malaysia Plan 1986-90, Kuala Lumpur, National Printing Department, p 274 (quoted by Rao, 2007)

An indirect support o f higher education in Bahasa Malayu is the governm ent’s policy in recruiting personnel fo r the civil service During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the civil service in Malaysia was the largest employer o f graduates, and the majority o f them were Malay, which led to the result that Malaysia had a very large civil service workforce Saran Kaur Gill argues that this situation “could not go on forever and was resulting in an economic hemorrhage of the nation because of the large numbers o f workers that existed fo r the nature o f the work required - it was not cost effective and burdened the government Therefore, in contrast, in the 90's, the nation turned to and depended on the private sector as the main

As Malaysia was entering the 1990s, some hard Malay nationalists could be content with the effectiveness of the affirmative action policy in higher education But the situation was more complicated One unintended consequence of these policies was the creation and development o f twinning programs

in Malaysia as an alternative for the non-Malays to seek higher education without having to use Bahasa Malayu as instruction language

The spectacular development and success of JPs (twinning programs) in Malaysia is conditioned by the country’s socio-political and cultural contexts in 1990s: the advent of Neo-liberalism amidst the culmination o f NEP and Affirmative Policies

International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: Nođh-South Perspectives

4.1 The coming of Neo-liberalism the Privatization of Higher Education

Neo-liberalism, sometimes also called Reagan-Thatcher Doctrine, emerged at the beginning of the 1980s

to replace Keynesian doctrine that dominated the world economy fo r several decades Unlike Keynesians, the neo-liberalists believe in the power of the market Reviving Adam Smith’s idea of the

“invisible hand of the market” , they argued for the minimization of governm ent role in most areas of socio­ economic activity, including education Under the influence of neo-liberalism, a large wave of privatization occurred on a broad, international level

Malaysia accepted the neo-liberal doctrine quite early and announced a Privatization policy in 1983

(Sivalingam, 2007) In 1986, the Promotion of Investment Act (PIA) was introduced that led to

liberalization o f not only the manufacturing sector, but also the service sector, including education However, the decisive shift from affirmative action towards neo-liberalism was in the early 1990s and closely linked with the leadership of the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed The conditions fo r the policy change were prepared by a series of great events in the world: the collapse of the communist bloc and the fall of the Berlin wall (1989); the disintegration the USSR and the end of the Cold W ar (1989), and probably also the success o f China’s economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping during the 1980s The neo­ liberal framework fo r the socio-economic changes was fully expressed in the Privatization Master Plan, announced in 1991 According to G Sivalingam, "the rationale for privatization was to:

(i) reduce the size of the public sector;

(ii) reduce the public sector’s borrowing requirements so as not to crowd out the private sector in the capital market;

(iii) increase productivity by encouraging competition, and

(iv) to increase the innovative capacity of the economy.” (Sivalingam, 2007)

In 1996, the “Private Higher Educational Institutions Act” was released, marking a turning point of Malaysia’s higher education corporatization

4.2 Between Market and Affirmative Action

The passage of the “Private Higher Educational Institutions Act” did not mean that the government -abandoned-its language-and-ideological-policy-wholesale.-ln-faGti-artÌGle-41 (-Medium-of-instruetÌ0n-)-0f- the “Private Higher Educational Institutions Act” expressly requires all private higher educational institutions to use Bahasa Malayu to conduct their courses of study as the sole instructional language:

“(1) All private higher educational institutions shall conduct its courses o f study in the national language

(2) Courses o f study under subsection (1) shall include the subjects required to be taught under section 43

(3) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the private higher educational institution may, with approval of the Minister

-(a) conduct a course of study or a substantial part of a course of study in the English language; or

(b) conduct the teaching o f Islamic religion in Arabic

(4) If any course of study or a substantial part o f any course o f study in any private higher educational institution is conducted in the English language or Arabic, the national language shall

be taught as a compulsory subject for the students following such course of study in such language,

(5) In the case of students referred to in subsection (4) who are citizens of Malaysia, an achievement in the national language, at a level determined by the authority referred to in section

39, shall be a prerequisite to the award of a certificate, diploma or degree o f the private higher educational institution or of any University, University College, higher educational institution,

• whether private or public, or professional body, within or outside Malaysia, consequent upon a ' course of study or training program conducted by the private higher educational institution jointly or

in affiliation, association or collaboration with such University, University College, higher

educational institution or professional body" (Private H igher Educational Institutions Act, Article

41)

The “Private Higher Educational Institutions Act” (1996), under Article 43, “Compulsory subjects”, also

requires private higher educational institutions to teach the following subjects: (a) Malaysian studies; (b) Studies relating to the teaching of Islamic religion for students professing the Islamic religion; and (c)

Moral education for non-Muslim students:

“(1) All private higher educational institutions shall teach the following subjects:

(a) Malaysian studies;

(b) Studies relating to the teaching of Islamic religion for students professing the Islamic religion;

and

(c) Moral education fo r non-Muslim students.

(2) The subjects mentioned in paragraphs (1) (a) to (c) shall be taught in addition to other subjects

or courses o f study taught in the private higher educational institutions

(3) in the case o f students who are citizens of Malaysia, a pass in the subjects specified in paragraphs (1) (a) to (c), at a level determined by the authority referred to in section 39, shall be a prerequisite to the award of a certificate, diploma or degree of the private higher educational institution or of any University, University College, higher educational institution, whether private or public, or professional body, within or outside Malaysia, consequent upon a course of study or training program conducted by the private higher educational institution jointly or in affiliation, association or collaboration with such University, University College, higher educational institution

or professional body” (Private H igher Educational Institutions Act, article 43)

In summary, these requirements effectively mean that as Malaysian citizens, students cannot earn a Malaysian university degree unless they study in Bahasa Malayu and pass these compulsory subjects,

and that private institutions cannot award a Malaysian university degrees if they conduct courses in

English

4.3 Joint-Programs as Alternatives

Before 1996, very few Chinese and Indians wanted to study in the public (which meant all) HE institutions, where courses were conducted in Bahasa Malayu The situation did not change very much

for the non-Malays after the adoption of the Private H igher Educational Institutions A c t (1996), because,

under the Act, private institutions also were required to offer courses of study only in Bahasa Malayu Moreover, as Provencher notes, “As Malay students became numerous in the university, they began to pressure authorities to increase these quotas even more and, to speed the process o f displacing English

with Malay as the language o f instruction, and also to establish Islamic Studies Programmes” (quoted by

Rao, 2007) For this reason, “Though it is stated that meritocracy is followed in the selection process for

entry into the university, the Malaysian state unofficially adopts the ethnic quota policies even more rigorously today” (Rao 2007)

33

International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: North-South Perspectives

The non-Malays students must choose If they want to earn a Malaysian university degree, they have to accept Bahasa Malayu as medium of instruction, and have to pass those compulsory subjects that are of

a strongly religious nature Evidently, study in Bahasa Malayu and passing all compulsory subjects to earn a Malaysian Degree is not the favored choice of Chinese and Indian students Consequently, many

of them choose to pursue higher education overseas The statistics show that in 1997, one year after the

Private H igher Educational Institutions A ct was introduced, 51,000 Malaysian students pursued their

studies abroad (Middlehurst, Robin and Steve Woodfield, 2003).

However, studying abroad is not affordable for everybody, especially during and after the economic difficulties in Malaysia in the 1980s and the crisis in 1997 To solve the problem, an innovative model of international cooperation in higher education, the twinning program, emerged as a solution According to Morshidi Sirat and Sarjit Kaur, one of the pioneers of the twinning program is the Sungei Way Group

"An excellent and oft-quoted example is the partnership between Monash University in Australia and a very successful Malaysian conglomerate, the Sungei W ay Group, to establish Monash University in Malaysia The Sungei Way Group was in fact a pioneer in twinning arrangements with foreign education institutions for it was already involved in this activity in the late 1980s, long

before the PHEI Act 1996” (Sirat, Morshidi and Sarjit Kaur, 2007)

Probably, twinning programs were originally created for profit-making purposes However, it soon proved

to have numerous advantages over their alternatives

Economically, twinning programs provide the non-Malays with English-medium higher education without

having to leave the country, and thus with significantly lower costs

Academically, twinning programs, especially those in collaboration with prestigious universities, are seen

as of higher quality compared to local programs The degrees awarded by twinning programs are often those of prestigious and worldwide recognized universities, and therefore are better appreciated by employers This means that the graduates from twinning programs have considerable advantages compared to the graduates from Malaysian institutions Moreover, the students of twinning programs also can avoid the requirement of passing compulsory religious subjects, which are often an anathema to Malaysia’s Chinese and Indian minorities

Administratively, twinning programs also have considerable advantages The quality assurance of

twinning programs is controlled by foreign universities, and therefore not only local universities, but also colleges can be involved in such arrangements (Here we are talking only about international twinning programs, because the twinning programs can be also arranged between a junior colleges - offering

"associate degrees" - and university degree awarding institutions In these cases, credits and transcripts earned by students in the ju n io r colleges are transferable and can be admitted by the degree awarding institutions) This means that private institutions, especially private colleges, can make money by conducting accredited university degree programs designed by their partner universities without having to pass all the long, costly, and administratively complicated processes o f designing, accrediting and gaining the approval of local authorities

Apart from the aforementioned advantages, twinning programs also offer great flexibility in terms of pathways towards program completion

The advantages of twinning programs underline their spectacular development and have contributed greatly to the development of private colleges in Malaysia, as noticed by M Sadiq Sohail and Mohammad Saeed: “ As for private colleges, there were a total of 666 institutions by the middle of 2001 ( ) private

higher education in Malaysia is dominated by colleges” (Sohail and Saeed, 2003, 175)

The phenomenal development o f twinning programs is also a reflection o f the role of twinning programs

as special free academic zones, that has contributed greatly to attracting the majority o f non-Malay

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