In my previous article on how to choose a private college (The Edge Financial Daily, Aug 8), I touched on the fact that private higher education constitutes about 42% of the tertiary education sector in Malaysia.
Recently, there was an article in an education news portal on a study conducted by the UK’s Centre for Global Higher Education of private for-profit providers in six countries, namely the US, Germany, Australia, Poland, Japan and Chile. One interesting point in the report is that the quality of education tends to be of a lower quality to that in public institutions.
While the study did not include Malaysia, it will be worthwhile to look at the private for-profit higher education landscape here. According to figures cited in a higher education ministry presentation in 2015, 524,350 students were in private institutions of higher education in 2013 out of an enrolment of 1,253,501 in tertiary education. This figure looks set to grow in Malaysia.
In developed economies like the UK (England specifically) and the US, private higher education providers constitute a much lower rate percentage as seen from data from their respective statistic agencies. In England, private higher education constitutes 3.3% of the total higher education enrolment while in the US, the figure is 23.4%. Comparing this with the rate of 42% in Malaysia, it is clear that the private higher education scene here is a lot more vibrant than those in England and the US.
Malaysia top country for transnational education students
Ever since the 1998 financial crisis, higher education policies and the accreditation framework were enhanced in Malaysia to stem the outflow of education funds to other countries. This saw the introduction of twinning programmes and their evolution into what is now commonly termed as 3+0 degree programmes, where an overseas degree programme is fully conducted in-country in partnership with a local institution.
This development is reflective of the global growth of transnational education (TNE) — the provision of education qualifications from institutions in one country to students in another, delivered through a wide range of platforms that include distance learning, teaching partnerships and off-shore campuses.
Since then, Malaysia is now the largest TNE country for UK universities. In the 2014/15 report by the UK’s Higher Education Statistics Agency, Malaysia (78,565) is far ahead as the top country for such TNE students, surpassing China (56,340), Singapore (48,520) and Hong Kong (29,705). Almost all of these TNE students in Malaysia are with private education providers.
The government has been actively pushing for Malaysia to be an international education hub and the strategy is panning out well. Malaysia is home to more than 100,000 international students and has three Australian university branch campuses, five from the UK and one from China, with a few more in the pipeline.
As of the beginning of 2016, there are almost 500 private providers (386 colleges, 25 university colleges and 71 universities) in Malaysia, making this a very crowded field indeed.
Many institutions elevated to full university status
Many private institutions have been working for quite a while with UK institutions as seen from the UK figures on TNE. All these mean that the private institutions have already have adopted the best practices, both in the academic and the quality aspects of their foreign partner universities. Statictics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency in the UK indicate that Malaysia is the top host country for overseas offshore provision/partnerships delivery for UK universities. This means these partnerships are under the watchful eyes of the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).
The partner university will require, as part of the overarching QAA code of practice, that the local partner’s quality assurance and control mechanism mirrors that of its own. For example, in order to conduct a particular programme, a local institution is required to have a mandatory library list and online learning subscription similar to the UK universities. In addition, the teaching staff for the programme here will have to be approved by the UK university in accordance with its internal academic policy.
These practices have to be embedded in the private institutions, with full oversight and regular audits conducted by the UK university.We have also seen many private higher education institutions elevated to full university or university college status, which gives them the power to award their own degrees. Some have even started to award research degrees in their own rights. Some have also developed an innovative dual-degree model whereby students get two degrees, one from the local institution and another from a UK partner university. This is a form of validation by the UK university that the local degree is on par and of the same academic rigour and standard as its own.
The government has also, via the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA), developed a robust and comprehensive accreditation and regulatory framework for all higher education providers. And Malaysia has worked closely with the UK’s QAA since the time of the National Accreditation Board, the MQA’s predecessor.
Quality evaluation audits in place
The route to quality is evolving continually and Malaysian private higher education institutions will have to continue to be at the forefront of adopting best practices. Quality evaluation audits like the Malaysia Quality Evaluation System rating for private colleges and the Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions rating for universities and university colleges are in place to ensure compliance, governance and a measurement of the quality of the learning and teaching standards.
While these help to keep private education providers on their toes at the compliance and regulatory end, perhaps we should look at how quality can be readily assessed from the perspective of the end user (the student/parent).
Private providers should measure student satisfaction, graduate employability figures three months after graduating, a professional body’s accreditation (if any), staff-to-student ratios, and enrolment and attrition rates in a more holistic and readily available format. It will certainly be a good practice to have these metrics captured annually and published in a provider’s information kits (such as its website, prospectus and leaflets).
Perhaps the MQA should make it mandatory for this information to be published by all private higher education providers.
Note: Singapore had just recently mandated that any private institution offering degree programmes will need to take part in a yearly graduate survey that tracks how easily their graduates find jobs, which will be administered by the Committee of Private Education (CPE). The results will published on CPE’s website from 2017.
Richard Teng ([email protected]) is a business development specialist who has worked for both private and public institutions of higher learning in Malaysia, Singapore and the UK. He is a firm believer in Nelson Mandela’s ‘Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world’ quote