Impact of World Class Education in Malaysia

..the flow of technology, economy, knowledge, people, values, ideas across borders (Knight 1999 p.14). The traditional form of cross-border flows in higher education has been for students to migrate from one country to another to advance their studies. Several economic and social factors encourage international student mobility and competition between countries for foreign students (Clark and Sedgwick 2005, OECD 2004a).

The flows of the globalization make the world borderless and create the nuclear impact to the countries around the world in all aspects, especially economy, technology and also in term of cultures. As we all known, economy, technology and culture including languages, values and ideology becomes the major or main elements that had been counter in order to label a country as a developed country. It not a piece of cake to build, feeding, develop and maintain a country because it needs high level commitments between the government and also the citizen of the particular country. As many countries around the world, Malaysia also one of the members of the countries that still searching for the best ways to promote the particular country in the eyes of the world. With the great determination, all countries trying to get the same level cooperation as the determination from their citizen in order to build a developed country. Education will be the best way to plant the awareness among the citizens of the country to change their life according to the current situation for example, technology show the most obvious development. As we know that technology is play important roles in this

globalization era, especially in terms of economy, social, as well as education. This is because by using technology we could save time, money and also energy. The titanic problem is how we could produce the knowledgeable or world class thinker citizen? Because:

Our only option to face the borderless world is by using the borderless thinker or world class thinker
As we know each and every action will have the reaction, the reaction or the result for this development is the production of the world class thinkers. How a world class thinker could serve the development of the particular country? This is the question that commonly we heard when the World Class Education topic been discussed. The world class thinker most be well educated person not only specialist in one field but more than that because by mastering many fields the particular person can work on many researches, innovations, and findings. Researches, innovations and findings are not only keeping in their thesis but they will publish those findings as the community around that person can get advantages from the finding. These clearly show in the selection for the NOBEL PRICE winner, they not only come out with new findings but their finding should be really useful to the world people. For example, the finding of new medicine for cancer should be publish and use by the doctor because we know that every second we lose one person as the result of the cancer. This type world class thinker not only should be nominating for NOBEL PRICE in other hand they help or serve the development of their country in terms of economy and social.

We should know that world class thinker not born with the labelled I am the World Class Thinker.

In order to be world class thinker, the particular person needs to master these elements: 1. problem solving 2. change management 3. availability 4. performance and tuning 5. capacity planning

For example, Dr. Afifi Al-Akiti had been selected as lecturer in University of Oxford; he becomes the first Malay who stepped into the university as a lecturer. This show the crystal clear impact of world class education in Malaysia, the job opportunity not only in local university but also abroad.

Technology is world and world is technology Technology is a great asset in internationalizing education.
If no technology, no world, that what we could say. Technology is one of the very basic elements of life because without the development and innovation of technology the particular country cannot achieve their aim to be developed country. This because now days technology become one of the best mediums to deliver knowledge and also to communicate. As we know, 21st century is both global and digital and state and local

technology resources are a great asset in internationalizing education. State technology offices should encourage the use of information sources from around the world, help teachers engage in international classroom-to-classroom collaborations, expand opportunities for students to take internationally-oriented courses and world languages online, and promote student-created international projects on the web.

One of the great strengths of the Malaysia is its adaptability. Just as schools adapted from the agricultural to the industrial age, so too do they need to adapt to the global age. The speed of change around the world creates urgency for action at every level.

Andreas Schleicher of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development wrote: The world is indifferent to tradition and past reputations, unforgiving of frailty and ignorant of custom or practice. Success will go to those countries that are swift to adapt, slow to complain, and open to change.

Increasing the number of globally competent graduates ready to compete and contribute to the world they will enter five or ten years from now is a large task. The cost of putting the world into world-class education will be considerable; however the cost of not doing so will be infinitely greater. We can no longer ignore the global imperative and must create a new blueprint for education in order to adapt and be successful in our changed world.

February 6th, 2011 by Greg Lopez:

In 2004, there were 4,594 unemployed graduates of whom 163 were Chinese, 207 were Indians and 4,060 were Malays; In 2005, there were 2,413 unemployed graduates of whom 31 were Chinese, 70 were Indians and 2,186 were Malays; In 2006, there were 56,750 unemployed graduates of whom 1,110 were Chinese, 1,346 were Indians and 50,594 were Malays. In 2007, there were 56,322 unemployed graduates of whom 1,348 were Chinese, 1,401 were Indians and 49,075 were Malays. In 2008 (as of June) there were 47,910 unemployed graduates of whom 1,403 Chinese, 4,694 Indians and 41,813 were Malays. This more or less tallied with the 47,733 active graduate registrants on the Malaysian Labour Exchange in June 2008. By March 2009, Najib was talking about 60,000 unemployed graduates. This was more or less in line with the 57,701 graduate registrants on the Exchange in March 2009. By October 2009, we were looking at 81,046 active graduate registrants on the Labour Exchange and another 70,747 active registrants who are diploma holders.

This statistics not only show the differences between the graduate unemployment and Malaysias world class education system, but also show the social stratification between the graduates. In my opinion, Malaysia government and all Malaysian should change this bad attitude. For example, if Malaysian face any problem they will find the main source of the thing by questioning who is the person should been blame for thing problem? They would not question how did this problem created and ways to abate it?

In this graduate unemployment issues the politicians blame the world class education system. It is completely unreasonable because they trying to said that world class education is become the main obstacle for the local university graduates lack of job opportunity, they have to know that each and every job application need undergo interview and some other procedures, mainly testing the ability, thinking, solving,

managing, planning, and tuning level of the graduate. For example, the ability to communicate in English As I mention before this characteristics become the main elements that need to planted in the graduate mind and heart; in order to produce world class thinkers who can help our country to achieve the main aim of Malaysia. Beside difference maturity level, intake based on meritocracy and international standards also plays very important roles in jobless issues. University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) is the university which will probably only serve to highlight UiTM is one of the least meritocratic public universities in Malaysia. This is why the graduate from the UiTM face the problem in job opportunity. Government should arrange back the intake policy as it can flexible to all Malaysian, most probably the jobless problem could be abate because the international standards of the university can increase and they also having the opportunity to doing twinning programme.

English is a commercial lingua Franca in many parts of the world, but English alone is no longer sufficient for global professionals who must compete and collaborate in a global economic environment.

In the nutshell, world class education is very important in order to face the globalization as well as in achieving all Malaysian aim to label Malaysia as healthy

developed country. Healthy developed Malaysia is balance development starting form economic growth and the environment to public health, reducing poverty as well as improving homeland security. The thing we require to reach these objectives is greater international knowledge and collaboration. The greater international knowledge and collaboration can be only obtained by having the world class education. Every major problem we face from economic growth and the environment to public health, reducing poverty and improving homeland security will require greater international knowledge and collaboration than ever before. States need a plan to maintain a competitive edge and prepare innovative, internationally competent young people for a new economy.
JAMES B. HUNT, JR., FORMER GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA, 19771985, 19932001

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