Checking drop in foreign students
KUALA LUMPUR: The declining number of foreign students in the country has prompted the Higher Education Ministry to set up a committee to study the country’s competitiveness in the region.
Minister Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh said the committee, comprising representatives from his ministry and the private higher education sector, would also discuss effective marketing strategies to attract foreign students.
“We are seriously worried about how Malaysia can compete against countries like Singapore and Thailand.
“For that very reason, I am heading a special committee to see how we can overcome the problems we have and improve things,” he told reporters after delivering the keynote address at the Conference On Building Asia-Europe Partnerships Through Higher Education here yesterday.
Dr Shafie was commenting on a report in StarEducation on Sunday that Malaysia currently has only about 23,000 foreign students, a far cry from the ministry’s target of 50,000 by this year.
The report also highlighted that other countries in the region, such as Singapore and China have come from behind and are now attracting a higher number of foreign students.
Singapore, for instance, has an enrolment of 50,000 foreign students while China, from where most of our foreign students come from, recorded a foreign student enrolment of about 77,715 in 2003.
Dr Shafie said his ministry had initiated several new schemes to attract more foreign students, such as allowing part-time employment.
“The permission for them to work is among the measures we have put in place to remain competitive,” he said.
At the function, Dr Shafie also witnessed the symbolic signing of a “contract” between the European Commission’s Asia Link Programme and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) to mark the launch of the European Studies programme.
On another matter, Dr Shafie said that the Public Services Department (PSD) had approved the appointment of two director-generals for the Higher Education Ministry, although he did not disclose who would be appointed to the posts.
“We initially proposed to have four director-generals but the PSD only approved the appointment of two, saying four were too many.”
One director-general would look into public and private universities while the other would focus on technical and vocational education, comprising community colleges and polytechnics, said Dr Shafie.
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