Malaysia has one of the highest proportions of international versus domestic students in the academic world with the average ratio being almost 1:10. Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said over the past decade, the country had become the fastest growing destination for international students, attracting an annual increase of over 16%. "This shows that education in Malaysia is not just affordable, but also accessible and welcoming," he said in his speech when opening the Education Malaysia International Development & Marketing Convention 2015, here, today. Idris believes the country is on track to achieve the target of attracting 200,000 international students by 2020 in line with Malaysia's aim of becoming an international and regional education hub. As at Dec 31 last year, Malaysia had 135,502 international students from about 160 nations, studying in public and private higher education institutions as well as international schools, he said. "This is an increase of 16.5% from 2013," he added.
The top 10 countries that contributed to the new applications last year were Bangladesh, Nigeria, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Kazakhstan and India. Increasing interest had been recorded from countries like Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, Idris said.
British Council Commentary:
Malaysia’s Ministry of Education has vigorously embarked on initiatives to elevate standards of higher education and towards establishing the country as a regional education hub by 2020, with the target of attracting 200,000 international students by then. With still 6 years away from the year 2020, Malaysia is still 32.3% away from the targeted number. To achieve the goal, Malaysia will need to have an average annual growth of 6.8% in terms of international students enrolments. The Ministry of Education in Malaysia has established various policies that will encourage international students to study in Malaysia, such as setting up branch campuses of foreign universities. This list of source countries for mobility to Malaysia is perhaps noteworthy, and a question is how does Malaysia close the gap to other countries that are more well established as education providers such as United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the US in terms of quality. Therefore, it is very important for the government and the institutions to identify a competitive edge that would continue to attract increasing numbers of foreign students to Malaysia.