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professional associations to prepare and train scholars and professionals. By com-
parison, the higher education field in Malaysia is considered still very young, as is
true for most of the developing countries around the world.
Higher education as a field of study in Malaysia effectively gained momentum
between 2000 and 2010, possibly as a consequence of the reforms in 1996 and
- However, it did not flourish until after 2004 with the establishment of the
Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). Within a mere decade, the emergent field
began to be considered seriously by higher education institutions and policymakers.
This was in response to the practical and scholarly needs to study the increasingly
complex issues of a booming higher education sector in Malaysia, particularly the
private higher education sector. The development of the field coincided with the
rapid expansion and transformation of higher education as outlined in the National
Higher Education Strategic Plan (2007–2020) (NHESP). Thus, to a considerable
extent, the expansion and reforms in the Malaysian higher education system brought
out the essence and importance of higher education study and determined not only
its orientation but also its contents and priorities. As such, in the field’s formative
years, a handful of researchers were preoccupied with the immediate policy and
practical issues in the expansion and transformation of Malaysian higher education,
in areas such as of governance, funding and graduate employability.
As the study of higher education research in Malaysia is relatively new, no study
related to the antecedents and consolidation of higher education research in the
country is available. Neither has any study been reported concerning higher educa-
tion that would indicate its current status and validity as a field of study. According
to many scholars (Chen and Hu 2012 ; Altbach et al. 2006 ; Tight 2004 ; Jones 2012 ),
as fields of study emerge and develop, they often gain recognition or acceptance
through a number of means. One is the offering of courses of degree programmes in
these emerging fields by numerous graduate departments. The fields are also repre-
sented by professional societies or associations, their legitimate areas of concern are
discussed through scholarly journals, and extensive bibliographies identify other
publications in the area. Recognition is also gained, quite often, by virtue of the
sheer numbers of persons interested in, and departments devoted to the area (Chen
and Hu 2012 ; Altbach et al. 2006 ; Tight 2004 ; Jones 2012 ). Using these indicators,
could higher education be recognized as a valid field of study in Malaysia? It is
important to reiterate though that there is yet no research analysing the history of the
field of higher education in Malaysia.
In order to ascertain and demonstrate the status of research and the availability of
graduate programmes in higher education, the authors carried out a simple analysis
of written documents from the education faculties through their websites, and data
on research from the Ministry of Higher Education. The aim was to examine the
course offerings and programme structure of the masters and doctoral programmes
in the field of higher education in Malaysian public universities. To identify the
research areas, the authors examined data on the research projects approved and
funded by the MoHE through its Institution of Higher Education Excellence
Planning Division (BPKI). The key features and themes of funded research were
analysed to provide a basic view of the current contours of higher education research
N. Azman and M. Sirat