Apparently, "Malaysia is working out ways to correct the imbalance of student exchange between Malaysia and Australia" according to our Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamad.
He said the number of Malaysian students studying in Australia way outnumbered the number of Australians studying in Malaysia. There are some 15,000 Malaysians studying in Australia compared with only two Australian students at the International Islamic University in Malaysia.Yes, exactly, how are we going to do that?
"We are hoping to attract more Australian students to study in Malaysia," he said without elaborating on the ways Malaysia was hoping to do that.
Australia has more than 10 universities in the World's Top 200 based on the survey by Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), while Malaysia has only 2 which barely made the cut. Now, is there a wonder why there are hardly any Australian students here? Hmmm...
12 comments:
perhaps they were implying students exchange?
They must be dumb enuff to come here...retrogressive evolution of education development
Unless they want to study how to become stoopid
Hi Benkaiser & Tiara,
If you read the article as it was reported, student exchange isn't at all what they were referring to.
The ministers were talking about "righting" the imbalance of 15,000 M'sians in Australia versus 2 in M'sia (IIU). I'm certain that the numbers were not referring to student exchange programmes. They are full time undergrad or postgrad students.
Hi Tony,
If that is the case, I see no other reasons for Aussie students to study in Malaysian except for Malay Language, Malay Studies, South East Asian Studies or perhaps, tropical bio research. And by any means such reciprocity of 15,000 students from Down Under is at best, a dream.
..we know MOHE has increased its marketing strategies to recruit foreign students esp. those from Indonesia and Middle East.. but just becos some related VIP is in town, this remark on marketing efforts for Aussies just have to crop up..
HaHaHaHaHa! After the atmosphere of fear created by the UMNO GA, it is nice for an UMNO minister to calm things down with a joke or two. Real funny. I must admit that, for a moment there, I thought the Minister was serious.
Hold it! Maybe he was serious after all. Which is scary, if you think that the ONLY way to effectively address the imbalance was to set a quota of students allowed by his Ministry to study in Australia. For example, his Ministry can say that it is good for the nation, etc, etc, that we have a quota for Malaysians studying there, that is, only for one incoming Aussie can there be a Malaysian going to Australia to study. This will not necessarily prevent our children from going to Australia, but will certainly increase the costs of sending our kids there, because a situation will evolve such that any Malaysian intending to send one kid over must also sponsor an Aussie to come over to study in Malaysia. Other than our Malaysian fees, that parent would have to pay that Aussie for time wasted, opportunity costs, etc, probably on an hourly rate basis. Going by their minimum wage, it can be quite expensive. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Anon 02:39:06
Have you all forgotten about his programme of churning 100,000 PhDs?
I am still rolling on the floor laughing and now this new joke comes!
Wow! We are lucky to have jokers in our cabinet providing us good laughs all the time!
To Anon 02:39:06:
It doesn't make economic and business sense to restrict M'sians who are major foreign exchange earners for Aussie Uni just b'cos M'sian "restricts" foreign students...they won't kill the golden egg goose is what I believe...
Don't be surprised if suddenly there is some kind of 2+1 thingy being mooted by our ever 'creative' ministers to have the aussie to do their final year in say Monash branch campus in Malaysia (with some freebies thrown in by our government, maybe - think of our oil palm exchange for a teh-tarik-nout with Russia).
how can our government let Aussies to study in our local Universities when we can't even provide enough place for our own students? Are they implying the private Unis?
hmm..ASK OUR GOVERNMENT ...LET US STUDY IN OUR OWN COUNTRY UNIVERSITY LAR..!!! IF I CAN GET IN um, USM, uKm or upm...i will study in malaysia..too bad i have to take stpm unlike australia open to everyone their matriculation !! malaysia ...blek ...maybe the day i die they haven't do tat
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