Honourable Chairperson,

His Excellency, Mr. Zhou Ji,  Minister of Education, China,

Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,

Distinguished delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very good morning to all of you.

It is indeed an honour to be given the opportunity to address at the Education Forum this year, and I would like to thank the organizing committee for the warm reception and hospitality accorded to us.

Before I begin, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate China for successfully launching its second spacecraft.  We wish the astronauts success in their mission and safe return home.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Education, traditionally, has been the most powerful tool for poverty eradication, economic and social development. The prime objective of education system in most developing countries has been to provide basic education for the people and to train enough human resource to sustain its development. Strategies for education development were relatively straightforward then. However, radical changes and transformation have occurred worldwide over the past three decades in the fields of science and technology, economics, politics and social dynamics. The convergent and mutually reinforcing impacts of globalization and ICT revolution, increasing dependence on cross boarder trades by nations and its heightened competition, have left some Asian countries with not much choice but to embark on transforming its production economy to that of knowledge based economy. And the key to the success of the transformation lies in the most important factor i.e. knowledge. Hence it is not surprising that catchwords in the fields of education and training have also changed from literacy and human resource to that of human capital, creativity, productivity driven, innovation, science and technology, ICT savvy, soft skills, global mobility, etc. All these will impact on the objectives of education system and the strategies of education development in the new century.

In this regard, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to share the Malaysian experience in education development, our initiatives for changes and education strategies to meet the challenges of the new economy.

 Basically, development of educational sector in Malaysia was largely motivated by rapid economic development experienced from 1970’s to 1990’s. The average GDP growth for Malaysia over the past 30 was 5 – 7% yearly. The focus of education system then was mainly to expand secondary education and vocational training, to produce sufficient engineers and managers to sustain the economic and social development. However, just like many other emerging countries in Asia facing the challenges of globalization and trade liberalisation, we are also embarking on a series of changes to education system to produce the right kind of human capital required to meet the need of knowledge economy as enunciated earlier.  

With the above objectives in mind, I am please to report education system in Malaysia, especially higher education will now focus mainly on the following :

·          Accessibility to higher education

·          Ensuring Quality of the education

·          Promoting Life long learning, and

·          Turning education into a thriving service sector of the economy

Access to Higher Education

Malaysian government has always given top priority to education in its development plans, as evidenced from its annual budget, where on average 25% of its public expenditure will be allocated specially for education and training. Beginning 1990’s, we have started to liberalise and democratise higher education in Malaysia. Essentially, we have taken three prong measures to increase the opportunities in higher education i.e.

·          Establishment and expansion of public higher education institutions in the country. Malaysia now has 17 public universities, which provide a total enrolment of about 350,000 places mainly for local students or 50% of the total higher education enrolment capacity. In addition, there are also 20 polytechnics providing vocational and semi professional training to about 80,000 students;

·          Encourage private sector to be providers of higher education. Currently, there are 26 private higher education institutions with university and university college status, and many other private colleges which cater for the other 50% of the enrolment capacity i.e. another 350,000 places for both local and international students.

·          Setting up of a National Higher Education Loan Fund to provide low interest study loan to qualifying students from low and medium family. Since its inception in 1997, the government has allocated RM 9.0 billion of fund, benefiting some 770,000 students.

With all these combined efforts, we have managed to increase the access of higher education for the cohort aged 18 to 24 years old from 19% in 1990 to 29 % in year 2004. It is the plan of the government to continue to expand our higher education in order to achieve access of 40% by Year 2015.

Quality Assurance

Malaysia in its quest to increase the number of knowledge workers has not lost sight in the need to ensure the quality of its education system.

l          We will continue to ensure relevancy of the curriculum, meeting set learning outcomes, moulding of wholesome character, and gaining international recognition of our qualifications.

l          This quality conduct process is carried out through in house quality assurance of the institutions, the National Accreditation Board, the Quality Assurance Division in the Ministry of Higher Education and the introduction of Malaysian Qualifications Framework.

l          Increasing emphasis on R and D to enrich learning and teaching experience, to enhance collaboration between academic and industry, to augment R & D capacity of the private sector esp. the SME.

l          Internationalisation of Institutions of Higher Education through presence of international students and teachers, international collaboration and cooperation in all aspects of university activities

 Life long learning

Recognizing that knowledge has to be continuously updated in a fast changing technological environment, the Malaysian government has decided to promote life long learning aggressively among citizens. To this end, we have established 34 community colleges to provide alternative pathways for post secondary school leavers. Likewise, universities are setting up continuous education centres providing wide ranging life long learning in various fields of study. In this regard, ICT has been fully utilised to promote life long learning through distance learning and E-learning.

Centre of Educational Excellence

Malaysia in its effort in expanding higher education opportunities for the citizen, has also set to develop HE as a important service sector of the economy which export capability. Currently Malaysia has over 40,000 foreign students from 160 countries studying in basic and higher education institutions in the country, ranging from :

·          26,000 students pursuing tertiary education from private higher education institutions,

·          6,000 students mostly postgraduate students  from public higher education institutions, and

·          8,000 students in International schools

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Malaysia recognizes the need to work closely with the countries in the Asian region to attain better bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the field of education. May this forum be our platform to address the challenges of rapid growth in the educational sector and provide avenue to build upon the opportunities for growth.

Thank you.