{"id":6471,"date":"2010-04-18T23:19:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T15:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/?p=6471"},"modified":"2010-04-18T23:19:32","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T15:19:32","slug":"more-foreign-students-targeted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2010\/04\/18\/more-foreign-students-targeted\/","title":{"rendered":"More foreign students targeted!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m all for improving economy and making Malaysia an education hub. BUT not at the expense of quality and living condition. We should learn a lesson from Australia who now beginning to tighten the strings after the quality of foreign students dropped terribly. Students who can’t even string a sentence in English were studying there.<\/p>\n

Even in Malaysia, we can find such cases. Students without proper communication language capability will find it tough to study. Even certificates of language competency can be bought, so there must be some better mechanism to evaluate students. Worse case, do a face-to-face interview la.<\/p>\n

I \u00a0have interacted with some China Chinese students and found it difficult to understand what they wanted to say. I wonder if they understood what was taught in class as well. \u00a0As for Iran students, well the negative news related to drugs doesn’t really give inspiration to us. Really need to keep tabs on the students.<\/p>\n

Another thing is that students are not allowed to work while studying, but its a rule on paper only. Students are a creative lot, and they can do wonders. Some are self-employed (from running illegal car rental service to organising events), while some others work in shops or go around peddling stuff. Maybe its time to regulate a proper working guideline for students so that they will have some pocket money and at the same time ensure they not attracted to crime.<\/p>\n

So, when I read the news<\/strong><\/a> below, I got worried. As it is, we are having some problems with foreign students. Going around parts of Puchong near to the colleges in Cyberjaya for example, you can hear some interesting stories. Try talking to people in Pulau Meranti (its a kampung that’s oddly named Pulau!). \u00a0In fact, a legally registered “wine shop” just opened in Puchong Utama. Just wait outside the place and see who comes to buy alcohol.<\/p>\n

The impact of such intake policy would only be felt few years later, so we really have think carefully on this matter.<\/p>\n

\n

The target of 80,000 foreign students in Malaysian higher learning institutions was met last month, so the Higher Education Ministry has set a higher target \u2013 120,000.<\/p>\n

The figure is expected to be achieved by 2015, Deputy Higher Education Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung declared.<\/p>\n

He said the ministry achieved the 80,000-foreign student target in March, nine months before the deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe target was to enrol 80,000 foreign students by 2010 and we achieved this in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe top three countries where the students came from were China, Iran<\/span><\/strong> and Indonesia.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them were undergraduates,\u201d he told reporters after a book launch at the Han Chiang College here yesterday.<\/p>\n

The 80,000-foreign student goal was set in mid-June 2008 as one of the 22 key performance indicators specified in the ministry\u2019s transformation plan.<\/p>\n

Dr Hou said information technology was among the top subjects drawing foreign students to the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAchieving our target early is a good sign that we can hit our next goal of 120,000,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Dr Hou said the four research universities \u2013 Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebang saan Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia \u2013 had been given the target to have a 1:1 ratio of undergraduate\/postgraduate students enrolled by 2015.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m all for improving economy and making Malaysia an education hub. BUT not at the expense of quality and living condition. We should learn a lesson from Australia who now beginning to tighten the strings after the quality of foreign students dropped terribly. Students who can’t even string a sentence in English were studying there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-6471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borninmalaysia","tag-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6472,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471\/revisions\/6472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}