Search results

The paper aims to identify the emerging themes on the challenges faced by the Malaysian private higher learning institutions (HLIs) in the provision of providing quality education.

Semi-structured interviews were purposively conducted with 29 of the Malaysian private HLI internal and external stakeholders ranging from the relevant personnel of the institutions (the quality director, administrators and senior academics), regulatory agencies, prospective employer, students and parents. Thematic analysis was then applied to analyze the participants’ responses in determining and clarifying the challenges faced by the Malaysian private HLIs in the issue of providing quality education.

Eight overarching themes were identified, namely, Academics, Facilities, Students, Programs and curriculum, Competition, Accreditation, Finance and Research. Academics represent the most frequent challenge raised by the participants, whereas Research emerged as the least mentioned challenge during the interview sessions.

The present paper focused solely on Malaysian private HLIs, and thus, the findings may not be applicable to the foreign private HLIs that are operating in Malaysia as well as to the public HLIs.

The findings are expected to provide valuable guidelines to the Malaysian Private HLIs in areas where resources need to be critically disbursed. To the regulatory agencies and policy-makers, the findings could enlighten them on the difficulties faced by these privately funded institutions so that further policies can be designed and implemented to assist these institutions in their operations and long-term survival.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a hierarchical model to rank the challenges faced by the private Malaysian higher education institutions (HEIs) in the provision of quality education and subsequently their corresponding critical success factors (CSFs) to address those challenges.

A sequential mix method was adopted in this study. Semi-structured interviews with 29 participants were initially conducted to identify the challenges and CSFs. This was followed by a questionnaire survey involving 158 respondents to prioritise the identified findings. Thematic analysis was conducted in the qualitative stage, uncovering the challenges and their corresponding CSFs. Data for both stages were accumulated from internal and external stakeholders of Malaysian private HEIs. Finally, the four stages of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were applied to rank the challenges and CSFs.

The qualitative stage identified eight challenges, i.e. “academics”, “facilities”, “students”, “programmes and curriculum”, “competition”, “accreditation”, “finance” and “research” together with their corresponding CSFs. The AHP enables the ranking of these challenges. “Finance” has been found to be the most crucial challenge and “high competency in managing the institution’s finance” as the most important CSF to address this challenge.

As the study restricted its focus on Malaysian private HEIs, the results may not be generalised for public HEIs and foreign private HEIs operating in Malaysia.

The hierarchical model developed in this study is deemed important for implementation to resolve the prioritised challenges. It spells out the specific areas in which the resources of Malaysian private HEIs need to be prudently disbursed and properly managed.

The growing professionalization of Malaysian industry over the past three decades, and the need for skilled business talent, have led to an increased demand for business education. This paper aims to examine how institutions in Malaysia have responded to this need.

This is a case study that synthesizes and organizes institutional experiences in delivering business education in Malaysia.

Malaysian academic institutions have responded to the demand for business education through a process modeled by the authors as a “cycle of business education” (CBE). The authors discuss institutional developments and competitive marketing strategies directed toward target markets during the five stages of the CBE.

The Malaysian experience in meeting business education needs can provide valuable guidance to educators and policy makers, among others, in developing countries engaged in similar initiatives. These countries can benefit from understanding more about institutional practices as well as from the problems that surfaced during the Malaysian CBE.

The paper makes an original contribution first by delineating and discussing the five stages of the cycle of business education (CBE), including institutional developments. Next it systematically articulates various components of the marketing strategies institutions use to deliver business education. Finally, recommendations are offered to improve the institutional provision and marketing of business education.

This chapter relies on comparative case analysis to examine how and why particular social entrepreneurs in a higher Asian middle income economy broke new grounds in private higher education. The study provides arguments as to why these private higher education entrepreneurs, when viewed inclusively, are social entrepreneurs. Findings from the study suggest that social entrepreneurs distinctively used prior insights from their working experiences to harness the financial power of local capital to fund the scaling up of their social ventures while simultaneously engaging with the country’s economic and social challenges.

Given the increased emphasis on embedding the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in the curriculum, research, engagement activities and operations of higher education institutions, this comparative study aims to replicate an earlier international study of Turnaround Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education (TLSHE) in the unique context of Malaysia and Japan. This paper also presents a case for closer focus on developing Education for Sustainability (EfS) leaders in institutions of higher learning.

This study is a quantitative comparative research. The authors collected data for EfS-related variables from lecturers affiliated with Malaysian and Japanese public and private universities. Building on the data and results from the TLSHE study, this study made a series of within- and between-sample descriptive comparisons from different angles and levels. To generalize the findings, this study used gender and experience outside higher education as control variables and compared the academics from the Malaysian and the Japanese institutions through the path modeling framework.

The comparisons showed that except for two domains, namely, contextual factors influencing EfS leadership and the EfS leadership development approaches, the means of all other domains based on the data collected from the Malaysian sample were the highest, followed by means from the international TLSHE sample, and finally the means from the Japanese sample. This study also observed that transparency, engagement with EfS initiatives at different levels, passion for teaching and learning, and creative and lateral thinking were among the top indicators. The inferential tests revealed significant differences between the academics from Japan and Malaysia as well.

The findings of the analyses can be used to ensure that the selection and development of EfS leaders (in this case, lecturers who may be formal or informal EfS leaders), not just at the central but at the local level in the distinctive context of Japan and Malaysia, focus on what counts and the good ideas embodied in the 17 UN SDGs are actually put into practice. This study has also highlighted the policy implications with respect to the gender and the previous work experience of lecturers outside higher education sector in more detail.

This study compares the perceptions of two samples of academics from Asian countries with the perceptions of the international TLSHE sampled EfS leaders in terms of EfS leadership-related issues and therefore, increases the awareness of academic community in this regard. It also highlights the role of lecturers (e.g. professors) as intellectual academic leaders in achieving SDGs. Moreover, this study shows that lecturers’ gender and previous work experience outside higher education should be considered when developing and implementing policies on EfS leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the affordability of private tertiary education for households in Malaysia.

The relevant literature is reviewed to provide an overview of the affordability of private tertiary education. Data are obtained randomly from a private university in Malaysia and the results are analyzed using the one‐sample t‐test and one‐way ANOVA.

The proxy of affordability, which is the average household income, reveals the per capita average is more than three times the national average, which points out the non‐affordability of students from low and average earning households to afford private tertiary education in Malaysia. Financial assistance of students at the tertiary level is insufficient and may warrant further policy and administrative improvements to reach deserving students. There is also difference in income and hence affordability between urban‐rural households, a perspective that demands changes in the current income distribution policies. In order to address the issues highlighted in this study, salient suggestions have been proposed.

This paper reinforces the need to address the issue of affordability of tertiary education and its significant importance, especially to developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the policies and practices of internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia, and to specifically explore how Sustainable Development Goals are translated into policies and practices.

This paper takes a chronological and historical approach to examine policies and practices on internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia. This includes identifying patterns, trends and shifts on internationalisation at the system and institutional levels.

At the system level, Malaysia has transformed from a sending to receiving country, from being an aid recipient to an equal partner, and from a host to a provider. At the institutional level, internationalisation transforms from a fad to a norm, and from having unilateral collaboration to setting up multinational collaborations with international partners. Equally important, the paper discusses the role of internationalisation to address the global Sustainable Development Goals, and identify policy gaps at the national level and the de facto practices of Sustainable Development Goals at the institutional level.

This paper charts the changes of internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia, and importantly, shows gaps to incorporate the global Sustainable Development Goals and to relate this global agenda to the internationalisation of higher education.

This study aims to examine the status of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Malaysia and entrepreneurship education programmes (EEPs) offered by Malaysian public and private higher education institutions (HEIs), against the backdrop of macro-level context of Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship.

This study replicates and extends the research by Maritz et al. (2015, 2019). The study expands a nascent archetype regarding an iterative and systematic open-ended emergent enquiry, together with data collection from Malaysian HEIs.

The findings suggest significant emergence of EE (programmes and research) in Malaysia, despite EEPs being sparsely distributed across HEIs in the bottom half of Table 1. The top ten HEIs (12% of all HEIs in Table 1) accounted for 35% of all EEPs. This study highlights the significant influence of Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship on EE and EEPs.

The findings are subject to the availability and accuracy of information and documents available on official websites of HEIs. This limitation has been mitigated with telephone and email inquiries and other sources of information.

The findings provide critical grounding and inferences on the status of EE and EEPs in Malaysia for researchers, practitioners, HEIs, governments and other stakeholders.

This study is first of its kind on emergent enquiry into the status of EE in Malaysia and EEPs offered by 19 public HEIs and 67 private HEIs in Malaysia. Moreover, this study links macro-level context of the Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship with micro-level context of EE and EEPs.

Teaching and learning are being transformed by digital technology, where the present generation of students, termed millennials, are more adept with the increasingly digitalised world we live in. Following this, lecturers and institutions are adapting and adopting a blended learning model across disciplines, which now commands an entire domain of research and application. However, questions remain about how ready students are for a blended learning model of instruction. The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ readiness for blended learning in a leading Malaysian private higher education institution.

This study used a non-experimental quantitative research design. Data were gathered from a sample of 274 pre-university and undergraduate students using the blended learning readiness engagement questionnaire. Data was analysed using WINSTEPS Rasch model measurement software to determine the validity and reliability of the instrument. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) scores, (logit) value of the item and (logit) value of a person was used to examine students’ readiness for a blended learning model of instruction and specifically assess their readiness based on gender, age, ethnicity and field of study.

Findings indicate that students were ready for blended learning. Further analysis indicated there were differences in students’ readiness for blended learning based on gender, age, ethnicity and field of study.

This study provides insight into students’ readiness towards blended learning in a leading Malaysian private higher education institution, discusses implications for blended learning practices and offers recommendations for future research.

Malaysia has shifted from a labor-intensive, agriculture-based economy since its independence in 1957 to a knowledge and innovation-based economy. Human capital development (HCD) is a key enabler for driving and sustaining Malaysia's socioeconomic growth. The education and training system is the main platform for HCD intervention. To sustain and achieve goals, long-term survival, competitive advantage, and sustainability, the workforce is optimized through comprehensive HCD interventions to provide the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies needed to work effectively in a rapidly changing and complex environment. Numerous efforts have been made by the government to ensure that the education and training system has the capacity to enhance the quality and availability of intellectual and skilled human capital to support the transition toward knowledge-intensive activities, sustain economic growth, and compete in the global market. The country's development plans and policies as well as the economic development which lead toward a knowledge-based economy with a knowledge-based workforce have charted out clear transformation journeys for the development of the human capital ecosystem. This chapter presents an overview of the landscape of HCD in Malaysia. Relevant reports, plans, policies, and strategies to strengthen human capital through education and training is reviewed. Finally, a few issues and challenges that Malaysia experiences are discussed.