Many public and private universities from Malaysia are actively spreading their wings abroad to as far as Africa to offset declining local and international students arrivals. China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Vietnam and Middle East are some of the known destinations.
Malaysian providers are venturing overseas and delivering Malaysian education with or through local partners. Online education is on the rise but not global yet except for the online institutions like AEU and OUM. Our quality assurance and regulatory arrangements have not caught up with this challenge. The conventional thinking among the regulators is that what they do abroad is not our business to worry. Its the host country issue. Is it really? Such a non-global viewpoint is contrary to the 10th shift in the HE blueprint - global presence.
QAA, UK and TEQSA, Australia maintain oversight of international delivery to ensure the country brand is not eroded when delivered through partners. We are not concerned with the Malaysian brand? Both MQA and HE ministry must come out of their shell and start to think global. All Malaysian awards delivered anywhere should be overseen by these regulators to ensure brand is protected. If the local university is awarding, the QA body and ministry have jurisdiction to raise questions about conformance to Malaysian standards with necessary local modifications. The essence and the integrity of the qualifications must be preserved. They are cases of Malaysian outfits offering 2 year full-time bachelor programmes, removing industrial training requirement and even conferring awards on the basis of a foreign programme which is similar to the Malaysian programme - a practice called dual awards which is actually validated awards. I personally saw agreements signed by three of our universities to offer the cheap version of dual awards when invited to be guest assessor in Maldives in 2017. This is actually 100% horizontal credit transfer arrangements. Education commodification looks complete with this cheap version of dual awards popularized by UK universities which has raise the ire of educationists. UK universities are doing brisk business doing the same in Malaysia as regulators have turned a blind eye to this 2 in 1 edu-innovation! Some have advocated it as confirmation of quality of local degrees. Really? That employers like multiple award. So far employers have criticized the quality of graduates. None have asked that the graduates come with many degrees or awards. Needing the colonial clutches is the most obvious motivation for local colleges.
Its time for our educational regulators to become global in their outlook and in their business of regulation just as they urge universities to internationalize. Lest our regulators still want to live under the proverbial "coconut shell", its time to take a good look at international practices of our universities to protect and preserve the Malaysian quality and brand, and promote responsible internationalization. We are on the cusp of major internationalization with the Covid19 assisted online studies. So start now and start right. Don't despair later. It will be too late.
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