Malaysia’s education minister, Dr. Maszlee Malik, had made his first education mandate announcement, outlining three strategic directions as a compass to improving the country’s education system. The three key directions are value-driven education, quality of education system as well as autonomy and authority for all education institutions. On top of that, higher education institutions in Malaysia are also encouraged to emphasise on collaboration and internationalisation efforts. 

Some key highlights extracted from the mandate:

• Development of relevant and up-to-date syllabus will happen. The minister specifically mentioned the importance of Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STREAM), on top of mastery of the English language.
• The schools and higher education institutions are also given more autonomy in deciding their activities, programmes and efforts in growing their own institutions. 
• Malaysia to continue working on its effort to become an international education hub by accepting more international students and establishment of Malaysian campuses around the world. Foreign education institutions are also encouraged to partner with the local institutions. 
• The ministry is in the midst of creating an accreditation system for TVET system to assure the quality of TVET education, in the hope to improve the graduates’ employability. 

Commentary by Tiu Kian Wee

The local education institutions are now encouraged and have been given the autonomy to form meaningful collaborations with foreign institutions. Following these changes, we may expect increment of collaboration opportunities, especially around knowledge transfer and academic mobility. 

Overseas education and TNE programmes are popular among Malaysian students due to the lack of confidence with the current local education system. The possible improvement of quality in the local higher education institutions might encourage more Malaysians to stay back to study in Malaysia.