(Summary by Prachayani
Praphamontripong)
PROPHE Summary:
The Malaysian Association of Private Colleges and Universities (Mapcu)
is responding to the national education reform promoted by the government.
Mapcu thus aims to increase its role in intellectual property and research
and in offering courses fitting the needs of domestic and international
students, as well as in supporting foreign students studying in Malaysia.
With governmental aid and public-private partnerships, Mapcu hopes to
make Malaysia a regional center for education by recruiting more foreign
students and preparing Malaysian students for globalization. Further,
Mapcu has proposed to strengthen the linkage between institutions and
the job market in terms of career opportunities and training. For all
its goals of improvement, however, Mapcu expresses concern about invidious
institutional ranking between private and top public institutions.
For the full story, see New Straits Times Press (Malaysia),
October 31, 2004. "Private education on the go," by Michael
Sun
PROPHE Observation:
Several global themes are at play here. One is the priority role private
higher education can have in globalization, both by training students
aiming to enter global markets and by the attraction of (fee-paying)
foreign students. Another theme is the effort of privates to become
more robust economically and educationally, escaping their more common
demand-absorbing profile. Such effort often involves some cooperation
with government, notably so in Asia. On the other hand, the traditional
academic and status dominance of a few public universities and the use
of measurement criteria friendly to them create serious concerns for
academically aspiring private institutions as far as official rankings.
