International Collaboration Involving Malaysian Institutions of Higher Education: Prospects and Challenges

MALAYSIAN higher education institutions are poised to deliver world-class tertiary education in the country as they benchmark against reputable international institutions in terms of the design of academic programmes. International collaborations have facilitated benchmarking of other core elements of any institutions, such as the quality of students' achievements and research output, and given a boost to the image of the local institutions. Knowing where they stand in global standards for these elements helps Malaysian public and private institutions of higher education refine the strategies and adopt a more effective tactics to deliver World Class Higher Education in Malaysia. The Malaysian Education Ministry's Higher Education Department through its JO-Year Strategic Plan (2001-2010) is targeting a higher, education system that will produce quality graduates able to meet the human resource needs of the nation. towards this end, internationalisation, producing high quality graduates and world-standard R.&D activities are among the three strategies identified. The zeal of many institutions of higher education is evidenced in the number of collaborations established with institutions of higher education and research organisations from abroad. This paper describes the development in international collaborations between Malaysian institutions of higher education with its foreign counterparts. The prospect and challenges of these collaborations are also discussed in this paper.