Education and Globalization in Southeast Asia Issues and Challenges

Higher Education in Malaysia 105

MOVING FORWARD

Malaysian higher education, and indeed the education system as a
whole, stands at the cusp of vital decision-making which could go in
two directions. On the one hand, it could make fundamental systemic
reforms taking into serious account, inter alia, the need to: identify talent,
particularly scientific and technological, irrespective of its source; support
overall employability of graduates by strengthening English language
(while maintaining Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and main
medium of instruction); enhance communication skills as recommended
by national and international research studies and surveys; and ensure
effective, globally- and future-oriented management who understand how
to make policies and decisions work in practical terms.
On the other hand, key decisions could seek to maintain the status quo.
Affirmative action policies based on ethnicity could continue maintaining,
by policy, a limited talent pool; low levels of English language proficiency
might continue hindering Malaysian participation in global research and
technology advances; incentives provided to increase and retain high-

FIGURE 4.4

Distribution of Employer Satisfaction of Graduates According to

Type of Higher Education Providers

Source: Fernandez-Chung et al. (2014).

39% 45% 52%

62% 63%

79%

44% 42%

38% 33%

36%

17% 13% 10% 5% 21%

2% 0%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Local

public

universities

Local

university

colleges

Private

Colleges

Local

private

universities

Foreign

branch

campus

located in

Malaysia

Foreign

providers

outside

Malaysia

Percentage

of Satisfaction

Types of Higher Education Institutions

Not Satisfied

Fairly Satisfied

Satisfied