55

54

Market Forces and Globalisation:

Implications for Higher Education in
Malaysia
Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

Introduction
With the continuing emphasis placed on higher education institutions in many
developing countries to produce knowledge workers for the next generation, there
has been a continuous demand to strengthen the provision and delivery of higher
education systems. The public debate on higher education in many developing
countries these days seem to exclusively focus on a few key issues pertinent to the
countrys development at a certain point in time. Arguably, the priorities placed on
these issues, concerns, hopes and actions might be tackled for about five years to at
most a decade (Teichler, 2004: 5). While many higher education systems in the
developed world embrace marketisation as a result of their expansions, there are
concerns that this can very well result in some dimensions of higher education being
pedagogically limited (Molesworth et al. 2009). Nevertheless, these issues and
concerns help to serve prioritisation and help shape the trends of higher education
provision. With the ascendance of the knowledge economy and the existence of
university rankings, the performance of universities is now thought to be improved
further by value-added goods and services that are in turn dependent on
technological knowledge and skills of innovation and enterprise.
Naidoo (2007: 2) makes the observation that in developing countries, less attention has
been paid to the more subtle and yet powerful barrier to building high quality
systems of higher education. She sees this barrier as the growing commercialisation
of higher education and the conception that higher education is a commodity to be
traded internationally. The inevitable presence of market forces in this arena has
affected the interrelated factors (push and pull) of demand for higher education and
the fairly fragile higher education systems found in many developing countries. In
this context, the massification of and ever increasing demand for higher education in
countries like Malaysia, Thailand, the Phillipines, India and China, to name a few,
pose attractive market prospects for potential exporters of higher education from
developed countries. Indeed, while this creates and presents interesting opportunities,
there are also potential pitfalls that have to be addressed by providers of higher
education in developing countries. The indicators of whether a higher education
system relies on market forces has more often than not relied on factors such as
funding of institutions, institutional autonomy and funding aid.
In the past three or four decades, Teichler (2004: 6) observed similar debates among
providers of higher education in developed countries with respect to emphasising
focus in debate and action on education and economic growth, equality of
opportunity, improvement of teaching and staff development, links between higher
education and the labour market, diversification of higher education, higher
55

Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

education management, evaluation and trends towards a knowledge society. In this

sense, the future of higher education, especially the role of universities within the
construct of the new economy has been a subject of intense debate and speculation.
The commodification of knowledge (Jacob, 2003) and the impact of globalisation
(Carnoy & Rhoten, 2002; Marginson, 2006) and the rapid pace of technological
advancement (the digital revolution) have all impacted on the role of universities and
prevailing systems of higher education.
This paper discusses how the collective forces of globalisation, in particular, and other
related market forces might affect the provision of higher education in a rapidly
developing country like Malaysia which has set out to identify itself as a hub of
education excellence in this region. In this way, this paper raises issues for further
debate and adds on to the discourse of strengthening the provision of quality higher
education in developing countries while encouraging international collaboration that
may lead to improved capacity building.
Defining Globalisation
The impact of globalisation on higher education has been widely discussed, with
some experts arguing that globalisation, the Internet and the scientific community will
level the playing field in terms of knowledge interdependence (Altbach & Knight,
2006). Others see globalisation as a market force that is chiefly responsible for
commodifying higher education in developing countries where the increasing need
and demand for higher education pose attractive market ventures to private higher
education institutions. With the prevalence of such factors at play, there has been
considerable transformation in the attitudes of international organisations towards the
importance of higher education in developing countries. Naidoo (2007) likens this
scenario of knowledge economy within the context of globalisation as having a
considerable transformation in the attitudes of international organisations towards the
importance of higher education in developing countries.
In discussing development through capacity building in higher education and
research within the landscape of market forces, Thulstrup et al. (2006) hold the view
that the following fast growth of three groups of people will dominate international
relations during the coming decades:

The fast growing group of old, relatively wealthy people in Western countries
and Japan
The group of increasingly wealthy and productive younger people in
successful developing countries like China and India, and
The group of young people in high-birth-rate and low economy countries,
who are only given few (educational) opportunities for a better life and are
increasingly dissatisfied and bitter; this unfortunate situation is a significant
part of the root system of terrorism.

56

Market Forces and Globalisation

At the same time, the group of desperately poor (for example in Africa) is not likely to
be reduced fast enough. Globalisation, that has been useful for China and India, does
not seem to help Africa nearly as much. Countries like South Korea and Singapore,
while poorer than many African countries thirty years ago, have made phenomenal
improvements in their economies through major educational efforts that have made it
possible for them to use up-to-date technologies efficiently and this has helped reduce
poverty (Thulstrup et al. 2006). For developing countries, higher education is not only
useful for economic development but it may also have a significant political impact by
creating the future manpower base that comprises informed and thinking young
people in support of democratic reforms. Today, knowledge-sharing is fast becoming
a catch phrase in higher education contexts around the globe -- those who have
knowledge (often these are labelled the good universities) must share it with those
who need it (e.g. industry, the public sector or the public in general).
In trying to unpack the term globalisation, most stakeholders in higher education
contexts view this concept as being mainly economic in nature but this phenomenon
has profound social and cultural aspects. In attempting to understand how
globalisation impacts teaching-learning contexts in higher education, one must first
consider the realities of the environment in which higher education is operating as
higher education environments these days are varied, face numerous challenges and
are often in a state of flux. In this regard, Morshidi (2007: 6) sees globalisation as
either a process (a heightened tendency towards interactions and interdependencies
of socio-economic spaces) or a fact of the contemporary world (the compression of
the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole).
Generally, he loosely interprets it as a socio-economic and technological process,
which tends to blur or diminish geopolitical borders and national systems. In
highlighting the patterns and trends of transnational education in Malaysia, he
considers the impacts of globalisation as contributing significantly to the competitive
edge that currently exists among such education providers. Marginson (2006: 6)
defines globalisation as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide
interconnectedness which determines the process of growing interdependence and
convergence on a worldwide and continental scale, driven by more extensive and
intensive flows of people, ideas, information, technologies and money. He lists the
distinctive elements in globalisation as follows:
1.

2.

the open information environment with instant messaging and data transfer
created by communications technologies so that higher education and
knowledge are becoming thoroughly networked on a world scale; and
Anglo-American institutions will be affected by more plural environments
because of growth of research in Asian countries like China, Korea and
Singapore with the power of the internet, air travel and knowledge.

In adopting a slightly similar stance, Altbach & Knight (2006: 6) defines globalisation
as the broad economic, technological and scientific trends that directly affect higher
education and are largely inevitable in the contemporary world. In his view, these
trends include information technology in its various manifestations, the use of a
57

Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

common language for scientific communication, the imperatives of societys mass

demand for higher education (massification) and for highly educated personnel and
the private good trend in thinking about the financing of higher education.
With some of the definitions listed above, it is obvious that globalisation is a term and
a phenomenon, which is on the minds of policy makers, academics and
professionals/practitioners no matter what the sector or discipline (Knight, 2008). In
most instances, globalisation engenders strong reactions, both supportive and critical
of its process and impact. Knight (1997; 2008) defines globalisation as the flow of
people, culture, ideas, values, knowledge, technology and economy across borders
facilitating a more interconnected and interdependent way. Other experts refer to
the changing context which poses a challenge to higher education or to changes
which occur within higher education itself (Teichler, 2004; Knight, 2008). On the
outset, it refers to borders of countries and infers a worldwide scope and movement
between and among nations and thus, as a phenomenon, it tends to assume that
borders and national systems as such get blurred or even might disappear (Teichler,
2004: 7). In some discourses on the subject the terms globalisation and
internationalisation seem to be used interchangeably, thereby inviting one to
question whether the issues we discuss in terms of globalisation are linked
inextricably with internationalisation, whether they are more or less coincidentally
related to one of these terms and could also be related to others.
In connection with this and within the context of higher education,
internationalisation and globalisation are two key elements that feed into debates
and discourses (Enders, 2004: 36) and other experts too concur that market and
global forces are popular and frequently employed concepts in varying contexts and
for diverse purposes (Knight, 1997; Yang 2002; Stier, 2004). Increasingly, the view that
seems prevalent these days is that the rise of the market and globalisation are
interwoven factors that make any possibility of classifying marketisation and
delocalisation aspects difficult. Generally, commodification refers to the development
of university activities such as teaching and research within a framework of market
relations. Around the globe, there have been strong pressures to roll back state
regulation and transform non-market and social spheres such as public health and
education services into arenas of commercial activity. In higher education, reduction
of state funding is now a common phenomenon with the underlying assumption that
this would introduce competition within and between institutions that will lead to
greater efficiency, effectiveness and relevance. Even at the global level, the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) is likely to apply even greater pressure on governments to
treat higher education as a commodity. Additionally, developing countries have been
seeing an influx of new providers, including private for-profit institutions, which
coincided with the relaxation of state regulation in a number of countries over the
recognition of degree-granting institutions (Naidoo, 2007). This said, before discussing
the political, economic and socio-cultural implications of market forces and
globalisation on higher education, it is crucial to first trace the historical development
of higher education in Malaysia.

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Market Forces and Globalisation

Malaysian Higher Education System: Background and Present Landscape

According to Lee (2004), the origin and development of higher education in Malaysia
can be perceived in terms of three distinctive waves of expansion. The first wave saw
the setting up of a first independent university in Malaysia at the time of British rule.
During the second wave (in the 70s and 80s), many more public universities were set
up to redress imbalances in terms of educational opportunities amongst the different
ethnic communities. This remarkable development took place after Malaysia launched
its New Economic Policy which took place soon after the bloody ethnic riots of 1969. It
literally altered Malaysias higher education landscape. Finally, the third wave, in the
90s, witnessed the accelerated growth of private universities and colleges to meet the
increasing demand for university education arising from the commercialization and
commodification of higher education. The expansion of higher education was caused
by two factors: the democratization of higher education and the emergence of a NeoFordist economy that called for drastic cutbacks in university funding (Lee, 2004: 4)
and which then encouraged the acceleration of privatized higher education and the
corporatisation of public universities.
At the time of Malayas independence in 1957, there was a university in Singapore
established in 1949 called the University of Malaya, a result of a merger of two wellknown institutions of Singapore. The first institution, the King Edward College of
Medicine in Singapore, recognized as a full-fledged medical college since 1915, was
the only academic institution that offered courses leading to a degree. The second
institution, the Raffles College, established in Singapore in 1959 offered courses in
English, history, geography and some other subjects leading to a diploma. In 1959, a
campus of the University of Malaya was opened in Malayas capital, Kuala Lumpur,
and this heralded the first wave of higher education.
University of Malaya was the only university that produced trained manpower for the
needs of the country when Malaysia was formed in 1963 (Abdul Rahman & Musa,
2007). It had four faculties: arts, science, engineering and agriculture and in terms of
its structure and curriculum content it was fashioned after the British educational
system. As mentioned earlier, the ethnic riots of 1969 and the drawing up of the New
Economic Policy resulted in the setting up of four new universities: Universiti Sains
Malaysia (1969), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (1970), Universiti Pertanian
Malaysia (1971) (now renamed Universiti Putra Malaysia), and Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia (1975) (cited in Lee, 2004: 42). This marked the second wave of higher
education expansion.
These additional universities were established to correct the widening socio-economic
disparities that existed between the Bumiputra (indigene population) and the nonBumiputra (non-indigene) communities and the lack of national unity amongst the
races. The latter was perceived as a direct result of implementing a university
education that is modelled after Britain. Hence, these new universities adopted a
59

Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

much more national outlook as their main objectives, as outlined in the 2nd Malaysia
Plan (1971-975), were to encourage national integration and unity (Abdul Rahman &
Musa, 2007: 27-28). More importantly, in terms of administration, the university no
longer adopted an autonomous system as it came under direct state-control. With
this development, universities had to adhere to guidelines set up by the Ministry of
Education with regard to financing, staff recruitment, and promotion, curricula,
medium of instruction, and student enrolment (Lee, 2004: 42).
The advent of the third wave saw a rapid increase in the number of universities and
colleges as a result of the governments initiative to de-regulate higher education in
order to meet the rising demands of higher education. According to Lee (2004: 42), this
wave witnessed the establishment of 4 new public universities, 5 university colleges,
9 private universities, and 5 branch campuses of foreign universities. Additionally,
two new universities were set up in Sarawak and Sabah respectively: Universiti
Sarawak Malaysia (UNIMAS) in 1992 and Universiti Sabah Malaysia (UMS) in 1994.
Subsequently, two colleges were accorded a university status: the teacher training
college in Tanjung Malim which was ungraded and renamed Universiti Pendidikan
Sultan Idris (1997) and the MARA Institute of Technology which was renamed
Universiti Institute Technology Malaysia (UiTM) in 1999. Over time, the number of
higher educational institutions grew phenomenally with an attendant increase in
student enrolment and programmes offered. Since 1996, student enrolment in higher
education institutions has been increasing phenomenally chiefly due to an increased
demand for higher education from school leavers who saw the value of having a
higher education qualification. Public universities could not accommodate this
demand. Hence through liberalisation policies, more private higher education
institutions were set up to meet this surge in demand. The private higher education
sector has recorded significant growth in student numbers and contributed in
improving access and equity concerns in Malaysias higher education sector (The
Sunday Star, 2009). In 2000, there were 11 public universities, 6 private universities
and 283 private colleges. In terms of programmes, private higher education
institutions offer a number of transnational educational programmes such as twinning
programmes, credit transfer programmes, external degree programmes and distance
learning programmes to cater to the growing demand for higher education.
The Malaysian higher education system currently consists of 20 government-funded
(public) universities, 40 private universities and university colleges and 545 private
education institutions (Ministry of Higher Education, 2008). These are multi-faculty
institutions, which offer a wide range of courses. Until July 2008, a total of 264,544
students were enrolled in various institutions of higher learning in Malaysia (Ministry
of Higher Education, 2008). This figure includes public and private universities as well
as polytechnics and community colleges. The general observation concerning
undergraduate enrolment in public universities is that it has been steadily increasing
(from 27,839 students in 2000 to 403,009 students in 2008). In private higher education
institutions, the enrolment of students is also encouraging (419,788 in July 2008),
despite higher fee structures than public universities. The Economic Planning Unit
(March, 2006) operating within the Ministry of Higher Education, reports that
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Market Forces and Globalisation

undergraduate students in Malaysian public universities obtain tertiary education that

is heavily subsidised by the government. For instance a student following a Computer
Science course in a public university pays RM 5,700 for the entire degree programme
while a student doing the same course in a private university pays RM 36,500, thereby
indicating that the government subsidises RM 27,161 of the fees for the student in the
public university. In another example, a student studying Medicine at a public
university only pays RM 9,800 for the entire degree course (with the government
subsidising RM 265,718) while a student in a private university pays RM 271, 317 for
the medical course. Further, an Arts student in a public university only pays RM 4,200
for the course while a private university student pays RM 65,072.
Table 4.1 displays student enrolment data in public and private higher education
institutions from 2000-2008:

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Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

Table 4.1: Enrolment and output of students in higher education institutions, Malaysia (2002-2008)
Enrolment/Output
Institutions
(all levels)
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

*2008

Public higher education

institutions

281,839
57,435

294,359
75,842

293,978
71,924

307,121
79,934

331,025
81,095

382,997
85,448

403,009
56,317

Private higher education

institutions

294,600
139,150

314,344
137,018

322,891
134,987

258,,825
57,953

323,787
83,186

365,800
83,431

419,778
51,571

Colleges/Polytechnics/
Community colleges

56,105
18,774

59,916
20,714

73,327
21,441

83,707
28,555

93,318
31,870

98,688
34,451

102,429
35,873

664,402
221,166

698,156
244,643

716,294
239,682

674,499
177,647

774,280
205,076

873,238
212,304

925,216
143,761

TOTAL

*Figures for 2008 is up to July 2008

Source: Ministry of Higher Education (2008)

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Market Forces and Globalisation

The current enrolment for the 2008/09 undergraduate academic enrolment in public
universities stands at 403,009 students and of this total, 57.7% of students are in the
science stream while 42.3% are in the Arts stream (Ministry of Higher Education,
2008). In the Malaysian higher education system, the bachelors degree requires at
least three years of full-time study while the masters degree requires an additional
two years. Full time studies for a doctoral degree take approximately another four
additional years. In most fields, students are able to choose from a wide variety of
options, including their choice for minor subjects. The private colleges offer twinning
programmes often with foreign universities. Postgraduate student enrolments have
also increased in both public and private higher institutions in Malaysia as the
demand for knowledge workers grow in workplace environments. Public universities
record a higher percentage of postgraduate students (15%) compared to private
universities (9%). Table 4.2 below shows the enrolment and output of postgraduate
students in Malaysian public and private higher education institutions:
Table 4.2: Percentage of enrolment and output of postgraduate students in higher
education institutions, Malaysia (2008)
Enrolment/Output (2008)
Institutions
First Degree

Postgraduate
Studies

Total

% of
Postgraduate
Studies

Enrolment
Output
Private higher
education
institutions

258,572
37,655

46,085
5,746

304,657
43,401

15%
13%

Enrolment
Output

158,158
15,058

9,847
635

168,005
15,693

9%
6%

Public higher
education
institutions

Source: Ministry of Higher Education (Quick facts, 2008)

Increasingly, globalisation is seen as a trend that identifies the increasing supranational context in which higher education institutions often operate. In Malaysia,
pressures from globalisation have made it an imperative upon the government to
ensure that public higher education institutions become more competitive and at par
with their global counterparts (Muhamad et al. 2006). In 1995, the Universities and
University Colleges Act of 1971 was amended to pave the way for the corporatisation
of public universities and by 1998, five of the older public universities were
corporatised and as such, these institutions were expected to generate more and more
63

Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

of their operating expenses through other non-governmental sources. Corporatised

universities are allowed to borrow money, enter into business ventures, set up
companies and acquire and hold inverstment shares. In the Malaysian model of
corporatising public universities, the government continues to own most of the
universities existing assets, and to provide development funds for new programmes
and expensive capital projects (Lee, 1998). In essence, such moves aimed to provide
greater access and liberalisation to public universities to manage their own finances
(through a variety of revenue-generating activities such as raising tuition fees,
increasing student enrolments, conducting consultancies for industry and government
and running short-term courses to meet the needs of the private sector) and allow for
greater dynamism at institutional level to respond to the changes taking place in the
landscape of higher education. It has been noted that some of the effects of
corporatisation include greater willingness to follow corporate practices of quality
assurance, capital budgeting, governance and other corporate activities.
The Malaysian higher education system underwent considerable expansion from 1980
to 2000, and there are now universities in all parts in Malaysia including the East of
Malaysia. The universities were, until 2004, administered under the Department of
Higher Education under the Ministry of Education. In 2004, after the recent general
elections the governance at the ministerial level has been re-arranged to ensure
expansion and sustainability of tertiary education in Malaysia. The Ministry of
Education was split into two. The emergence of the new Ministry of Higher Education
will help to promote Malaysia as an education hub. Foreign education offices have
been set up in Beijing, Dubai, Ho Chi Minh City as well as Jakarta to market the
education products that Malaysia has to offer. A special envoy equivalent to a
ministerial status was elected to attract blue-ribbon foreign universities to set up
branch campuses in Malaysia. Table 4.3 below displays the various foreign
universities that have established their campuses in Malaysia:
Table 4.3: Foreign universities in Malaysia
No.

Name of University

1.

University of Nottingham in Malaysia (UNIM)

2.

Monash University Malaysia (MUSM)

3.

FTMS-DeMonfort University, Campus Malaysia (FTMS)

4.

Curtin University of Technology, Campus Lutong (CUSM)

5.

Curtin University of Technology, Campus Miri (CUSM)

6.

Swinburne University of Technology (Sarawak Campus)

Source: Ministry of Higher Education (2008)

Within the Malaysian context, some of the following factors have put additional
pressures on public universities: the reduction in public funding for higher education,
the increasing push for industry-university collaboration, the transition to a high-tech
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Market Forces and Globalisation

economy, value-added and innovation are assumed imperatives, and the advent of
private higher education institutions. As such many public universities feel the strain
of having to re-engineer and re-invent themselves to cope with social and economic
change. However, most public universities view this aspect favourably as they value
the role they play in effectively nurturing and promoting innovation in research and
teaching. Having said this, one must also consider the flip side of corporatisation and
commodification and their implications for higher education which Naidoo (2007)
aptly refers to as the perils and pitfalls assailing developing economies.
Implications for Higher Education
Corporatisation of universities in the country emerged with the primary objective of
making these tertiary institutions financially independent and sustainable. Very much
in line with the neo-liberal economics being pursued by the government,
corporatisation is also seen as a mechanism to help reduce the expenditures of
government particularly in the area of higher education. This involves certain
measures taken by the universities with the aim of generating income, such as offering
more courses, preferably practical ones, that are normally regarded as serving the
needs of the industry and therefore providing practical preparation prior to a
graduates employment.
The implication of this is that certain universities, in their enthusiasm to increase their
profits, may be inclined to fine-tune some of the courses by watering down their
content and by offering more practical or skill-based courses so as to attract more
students. This may be done at the risk of transforming the universities into vocational
institutions. As a consequence, this can affect the academic quality and standing of
these institutions with the watering down, or marginalising, of certain theoretical
offerings.
The corollary to corporatisation is the commodification of higher education where
knowledge is given a commercial, if not market, value. For one thing, this approach to
education is likely to cause certain academic courses being marketed aggressively,
such as management, economics, engineering, biotechnology, while other courses,
which are equally, if not more, important in nation building, such as history,
philosophy, sociology, political science, art, and literature, get sidelined simply
because the latter are considered less marketable.
Another serious implication of commodification of knowledge is that courses,
especially those deemed marketable, may be priced at a level that may not be within
the financial reach of especially those in the lower income bracket and the poor.
Obviously, such commodification can cause socio-cultural gap between social classes,
which may culminate in inter-class conflict in the long run. Besides, this also means
that the right to higher education for the less endowed is rudely denied.
In their desire to stay financially afloat as well as making profits, universities find
themselves compelled to attract and accept more students, local and international.
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Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

This may be done to the extent of increasing the student-teacher ratio so that teaching
becomes less effective within a crowded classroom. Lecturers may find it difficult to
pay attention to each and every student who joins a class. One way of overcoming this
potential problem is of course for the universities concerned to make a conscious
attempt to employ more academic staff, especially those who have impeccable
academic credentials to their names. A mere presence of qualified and experienced
academic staff should be an attraction to student applicants.
On the other hand, the deliberate policy of universities to attract more graduate
students, particularly those from overseas, may produce a positive result insofar as
opening up possibilities for vibrant and richer cultural and intellectual exchanges and
sharing between local and foreign students in their respective fields of studies. New
ideas and perspectives of things can emerge which in turn could help to enrich or
boost the intellectual development of the students as a whole. Additionally, the endresult of the academic pursuit or research of especially the foreign graduate students
would also help to enhance the local collection of academic studies in each of the
universities concerned.
It is envisaged that the exposure to new perspectives and ideas brought about by the
aggressive policy of wooing foreign graduate students would create a vital space for
freer and vibrant exchange of ideas, including those that may not find resonance
within the educational institutions or the local intelligentsia.
The primary aim to attract more students into the respective universities as one way
of boosting their coffers may also produce yet another positive outcome, that is, the
stiff competition between the universities may compel them to not only be at the
frontier of knowledge and advanced research, but also to be more concerned about the
need to be rigorous and stringent in the maintaining of academic standards.
The liberalisation of education in the country has also given rise to the burgeoning of
private universities in Malaysia to cater to the educational needs of both local and
foreign students. In the present structure, public universities by and large offer
courses in the Malay language while the medium of instruction of the private ones is
largely English language. In the long run, this may pose and create serious problems
of structural ethnic polarisation given that most Bumiputras dominate the public
universities while the non-Bumiputras are largely found in the private institutions. In
this connection, Lee (2004: 31) states that about 90% of the student population in
private higher education institutions consist of non-Bumiputras. To overcome the
challenges posed by this ethnic divide, the government suggested that all courses
conducted at these institutions be conducted in the Malay language to allow more
Bumiputra students, in particular the Malays to study at private universities since
they are much more conversant in this language. This suggestion drew large protests
from private education providers as all the transnational education programmes came
from Western countries.

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Market Forces and Globalisation

In trying to indigenise higher education, the Malaysian government also implemented

a language policy by making all foreign students learn Bahasa Malaysia (the national
language). However, the governments nationalistic sentiments had to be sacrificed as
they interfered with Malaysias efforts in making itself a hub of educational
excellence. It was found that such a policy was not relevant to the needs of the foreign
students. As a provider of education often recognised worldwide as an emerging
contender for the market for international students, Malaysia had to include more
universalistic elements in the programmes that are being offered. Additionally, as
intimated earlier on, although the liberalisation policy of the government widened the
access to higher education, it may just benefit the privileged class as the cost of
learning in a private university is much higher than in a public university. As such,
these have serious implications not just in terms of ethnicity but also of class.
Quality assurance is yet another important issue as it involves all stakeholders,
including branch campuses that have been set up by foreign universities. Programmes
that are being offered by these transnational providers should reach a minimum level
or they should be on par with the ones taught in the foreign universities. In
maintaining quality, the government had established the National Accreditation
Board or LAN (now replaced by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (hereafter,
MQA)) whose primary function is to monitor standards reached by private higher
education institutions. In the past, MQA had been shown to be ineffective due to staff
shortage. This has resulted in private higher education institutions advertising their
courses and recruiting students before getting the approval from the MQA. In this
regard, governance and the management of private higher education should be
prioritised to ensure that programmes and courses that are offered are of high quality.
Conclusion
On the whole, this paper has attempted to demonstrate the impact of globalisation
and related market forces on the provision of higher education in a rapidly
developing country such as Malaysia. This is line with global trends that dominate the
debate whether to rely on market forces to achieve key policy objectives in higher
education, even though many systems acknowledge such privatisation debates have
lacked a clear definition of what it means to rely on market forces. On a positive note,
such debates have brought forth relevant questions pertaining to the role of
government intervention and academic self-regulation in harnessing the benefits of
increased competition and efficiency without losing the traditional conception of a
universitys mission in championing public good which society still continues to
value.
With globalisation and, subsequently, internationalisation, student enrolment had
steadily increased in Malaysian institutions of higher learning as observed in their
steady influx from neighbouring countries. This increase is also due to the
massification and democratisation of higher education. In order to cater to the
growing need for higher education and rising student intake, private higher education
institutions have been invited to set up branch campuses and to offer a number of
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Sarjit Kaur and Shakila Abdul Manan

transnational educational programmes. Viewed from an economic perspective, such

cross-border delivery of education is lucrative as it brings in foreign exchange to the
host country.
Because it has evolved into a multimillion dollar business, higher education has also
become highly competitive. In this regard, providers of higher education are
constantly kept on their toes, offering only the best programme and facilities so as to
attract potential clients. Public universities have been pushed into forming smart
partnerships with the industry and foreign universities to embark on collaborative
research which will help to nurture and promote good research and teaching
practices. Links forged with the latter can also help in capacity building as trained and
knowledgable workforce is vital elements for developing economies. This is
particularly true for Malaysia in her quest to become a hub of educational excellence.
However, corporatisation and commodification can also pose a danger if we do not
exercise caution. This is because market forces can determine the types of courses to
be offered and marginalise national needs and goals. Although the massification of
education and globalisation can provide students greater access to higher education, it
can also further increase the ethnic divide as more Bumiputra or the indigene
students are enrolled in public universities than private ones. Corporatisation and
commodification become untenable especially if and when it results in deepening the
gap between the haves and have nots. As mentioned above, it can also engender
ethnic polarisation and, ironically, the lowering of academic standards particularly if
quality education is sacrificed at the altar of corporate profits. In sum, these are some
of the pertinent issues and challenges assailing all stakeholders which need further
study and scrutiny.
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