Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences Prof Dr Chan Nee Nee and Psychology lecturer Dr Junaidah Yusof joined a fascinating new consultancy project designed to review internationalisation policies in Malaysia’s higher education industry.
After commissioning the review under Education Policies Studies (EPS), the Ministry of Education awarded RM569,515 to the International Institute of Public Policy and Management (INPUMA), University of Malaya to carry out the study from September 2019 to February 2020.
Prof Chan was appointed as one of the four consultants and Dr Junaidah as a research associate. They are part of an eight-person team who worked to identify new directions to enable the realisation of Malaysia’s aspiration of becoming one of the world’s top international and regional education hubs.
Led by Prof Dr Shakila Yacob, Executive Director, INPUMA, Universiti Malaya, the team spent six months conducting reviews of public and private universities throughout the nation.
Prof Chan said the study was conducted on six clusters of internationalisation policy – student mobility, staff mobility, academic programmes, research and development, governance and autonomy, as well as social integration and community
engagement.
“Dr Junaidah and I were part of the team that developed open-ended and close-ended questionnaires for these six clusters,” said Prof Chan.
“We surveyed 2,438 university students, staff and alumni members from 61 tertiary institutions. Eight policy labs with 130 participants from 38 institutions and companies were conducted. Top people in the industry were also interviewed. Twelve key take-aways and recommendations were proposed.”
It is in line with Malaysia’s goal of becoming a global education system leader through sustained policies such as the Internationalisation Policy for Higher Education Malaysia 2011, and the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2015 – 2025) for
Higher Education. This, in turn, would be a springboard for the country to be more competitive in the global economy.
“It was definitely an honour for me and Prof Chan to join such an effectual study. It provided us with a deeper insight into the higher education system and how we can take it to the next level,” said Dr Junaidah.
“This is a national level project and the recommendations we make would most likely impact all Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia. I’d like to thank the Ministry, Quest International University and Prof. Shakila for giving us the opportunity to contribute,” added Prof Chan.
