Proposal of

The Prospect of Malaysia as Place for Education Tourism Destination: Comparison

of Studying in Malaysia and United Kingdom

To

Tourism Malaysia Board

1.0 Introduction

The Malaysian tourism industry has witnessed rapid growth in 2007 and is identified as

the central force of the growth in the service industry. The industry is the biggest source

of foreign exchange for the country contributing significantly to the growth of Gross

Domestic Product (GDP). Today, the tourism industry of the country is helping to

generate employment and boasting the service account of the balance of payments

The efforts of the Malaysian government and leading players of this sector to improve the

tourism services and infrastructure have contributed in attracting more foreign tourists. In

order to make the Malaysian tourism products and services more attractive, the

government has given emphasize to the promotion of country’s culture and natural

heritage and is giving priority to shopping, leisure, recreational activities, and events

related to business.

The Sabah Students Association however sees another aspect of tourism that should be

taken into consideration which can be used as one of the method of attracting more

tourists to Malaysia. This method is not a stranger in the tourism industry, in fact has

been one of the largest income contributor to the Malaysian economy.

By far, the Tourism Board of Malaysia has ventured into health tourism, wellness

tourism, eco tourism in order to promote Malaysia as on of the region hub for tourism.

The Association therefore, proposes to the Board, to include education tourism in the list

above for this line of tourism could be beneficial to the nation economically and socially.

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1.1 Background

Education tourism is a relatively untapped segment in Malaysia, not because of

the lack of medical facilities or expertise, but more because of the emphasis given to the

leisure and business events segments. However of late those involved in the tourism

industry, specifically the public sector, are beginning to realize the potential of education

tourism and the foreign exchange it can bring into the country.

The term education tourism or education tourism refers to any

"program in which participants travel to a location as a group with the primary purpose

of engaging in a learning experience directly related to the location"

Rodger, 1998, p.28

It is comprised of several sub-types including ecotourism, heritage tourism, rural or farm

tourism and student exchanges between educational institutions. The notion of traveling

for educational purposes is not new (Gibson, 1998; Holdnak & Holland, 1996;

Kalinowski & Weiler, 1992) and its popularity in the tourism market is only expected to

increase (Gibson, 1998; Holdnak & Holland, 1996). Malaysia can increase its tourism

earnings by tapping into this growing market phenomenon.

Malaysia is increasingly recognised by students from around the world as the preferred

choice for tertiary and continuing education. Today, great numbers of bright young

individuals from around the world contribute to the medley of cultures and languages in

Malaysia.

According to e-brochure produced CamarO (2001) Malaysia has a wide range of

education facilities including kindergartens, private schools, international schools as well

as colleges and universities that offer top-notch education. Many of the colleges and

universities in Malaysia are affiliated with reputable overseas universities. The best

achievement of education in Malaysia is being a pioneering country in this region to have

branches of campuses of foreign universities. Establishment of these branches reflects

that high-level of confidence in Malaysia as a provider of top quality education.

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According to the Ministry of Higher Education official web portal (2009) there

are more than 500 institutions of higher learning available all over this country. These

institutions of higher learning offers long-term programmes such as Diplomas,

Bachelor’s, Masters and Postgraduates Degree and also short-term programmes such as

English language Courses, motivation camps as well as Computer skill courses.

Furthermore, students can choose to enrol in private and international schools or opt for

expatriate school where they can continue with the syllabi of their respective countries.

A number of prestigious Malaysian universities have also made their mark as centres of

scholastic excellence, such as the International Islamic University and the Multimedia

University. There are also the more established and prestigious institutions like

University Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysian University of Science in Penang. In

addition, a number of international colleges and universities have established twinning

programmes with Malaysian institutions and today names such as Monash, Nottingham

and others offer students the choice of completing their entire course in Malaysia or in

countries such as Australia, New Zealand or United Kingdom.

Furthermore, quality of these programmes is always controlled and monitored by the

Malaysia Lembaga Akredetasi Negara or LAN. This high prestige Board ensures that the

programmes offered are according to the standard and measurement generally accepted in

international education. Each program offered in colleges or universities must receive

approval from LAN in order to ensure students who enrolled to these programs will have

better opportunity and marketable.

The proposal therefore provides an in-depth analysis of the present and future prospects

of the education tourism industry in Malaysian perspective. It focuses on comparing four

important aspects of common features of studying in Malaysia and United Kingdom. This

includes cost of living, accommodation, courses offered and education fees. The proposal

is hoped to help the Tourism Board of Malaysia to evaluate the opportunities and factors

critical to the success of tourism industry in Malaysia.

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1.2 Methodology

The Association is well aware to the fact that findings in this proposal will determine the

Board decision on promoting education tourism. The Association had therefore decides to

gather and study data and information from various but reliable and relevant sources.

Some of the resources are;

The internet. This virtual-information-loaded material source is selected mainly due to its

efficiency to provide materials at considerable amount of time and cost. The Council

however was very selective on the types of materials retrieved from the internet due to

relevancy issues. The council therefore had settled on selecting reports from trustable

source only such as

The Tourism Ministry web portal – a government based website for the Malaysia

Tourism Ministry.

The Education Ministry web portal – a government based website for the

Malaysia Education Ministry.

The Higher Education Ministry web portal - a government based website for the

Malaysia Education Ministry.

The Malaysian Association of private Colleges and Universities web portal – an

online guide to private colleges and scholarships.

Reports and journals. These are collection of research conducted on health tourism in

general and some are more specific on health tourism in Malaysia. Some of the reports

are;

Journal of Kuala Lumpur Royal Malaysia Police College.

Country Report Malaysia by United Nation General Assembly

World Travel & Tourism Council Report

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Books and News Papers. These tertiary types of information are gathered and scanned for

information which proven to be useful in giving support for the ideas in this proposal.

All sources were then scrutinized for information and studied to ensure relevancy. Later,

the information and data are organized to prepare an outline for the proposal. From all the

data collected, the Association has decided to study the four aspects of education tourism

that student usually consider when selecting location to continue their study. Which are

cost of living, accommodation, education fees and courses offered. The Working also

used the data gathered to compare education tourism in Malaysia and the United

Kingdom based on the four aspects.

2.0 Result and discussion

Based on review of the materials gathered, the findings below have been established as

result and deserved to be taken into consideration when planning to promote education

tourism in Malaysia.

In selecting a place for further study, students and their family usually look for the

college’s or university’s background in producing quality students and the courses

offered. However, when studying abroad, factors such as cost of living accommodation,

education fee and courses offered are on the top ten list of factors to be considered. These

factors will be elaborated below to help better understanding of how the matter effect the

tourism industry and how they can be manipulated to attract students from abroad to

choose Malaysia as their education tourism destination.

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2.1 Cost of living

According to Anokmah and Larson (1990) cost of living can be defined as the

expenditure used to maintain daily needs and necessities and this expenditure is usually

influenced by the domestic economy of a nation. Students who seek tertiary education

often take in to consideration the expenditure they have to fork out in order to supply

their needs and necessities while studying.

The Association therefore will compare cost of living in Malaysia and the United

Kingdom based on the necessities in table 2.1.1 below.

Element Malaysia United Kingdom

Currency Ringgit Malaysia (RM) Pound Sterling ($)

Accommodation cost

(Per month)

Hostels : RM200.00

Rental house : RM 400.00 –

RM800.00

Hostels : $ 200.00

Rental house : $ 600.00 –

$ 1000.00

Food Cost

(Average per day)RM 20.00 $ 50.00

Clothing Cost RM 100.00 $ 300.00

Table 2.1.1 : Comparison between Malaysia in terms of cost f living

Source : http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-of-living/cost-of-living-in-the-united-

kingdom.html [14 April 2009]

The cost of food and drinks in the United Kingdom is generally high compared to other

European nations. Most of the goods in major cities come from provincial harvests and

are charged with value-added tax. Imported goods are also taxed which significantly

increases their original value. The average Briton spends about 200 to 350 euros every

month on food. Grocery items and those found in supermarkets are possibly the cheapest

expatriates can find. Some delis and community markets may offer lower costs

depending on quality.

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2.2 Accommodations

Basically, accommodation means a place to stay. During their study period, these

students would need a place that would shelter them from the weather and keep them

safe.

When it comes to students, it is important that these students accommodation has the

basic necessities such as water, electricity and furniture. Foreign students coming to

Malaysia under exchange students program usually will be provided with accommodation

by the college or universities to help them adjust with their new environment. Never the

less it is fairly easy to look for accommodation in Malaysia and at rates between RM400

to RM800 per month. (http://www.theexpatgroup.com). International students are

allowed to share their accommodation, which means the house rental is shared together

equally.

As for the United Kingdom, students can opt to stay in Halls of Residence or look out for

private rental usually available near the college or Universities. Halls of Residence is the

type of accommodation that is usually in short supply, so if you are hoping to live in a

hall of residence at your university, inquire early about application procedures. If not,

students will have to go for house hunting before he or she can start class. According to

http://www.studento.com/international-students [14 April 2009] the UK government

requires international students coming to UK has to get themselves a place to stay before

they could actually start their classes. Student’s are allowed to share their apartment or

house, however the tenure is usually at weekly basis which basically means the student

has to spare money every week for rental purposes.

2.3 Education fee

There are a few table that need to be understood when it comes to education fee in

Malaysia and the United Kingdom. This table will show the comparison of fee according

to courses and types of programmes. Variance of fee usually depends on the length of

courses taken. For example

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Courses

Average Total Tuition Fees per academic year

Average Living Costs per

academic year (9 months)

Average Total Costs per year

Science 8,200 6,600 14,800 Medicine 15,450 6,600 22,050 Others 6,303 6,600 12,903

Table 2.3.1 : Postgraduate fee according to courses in United kingdom

Source: http://www.infozee.com/uk/expenses.htm [14 April 2009]

Courses

Average Total Tuition Fees per academic year

Average Living Costs per

academic year (9 months)

Average Total Costs per year

Business 5,800 1,600 7,400Medicine 10,000 1,600 11,600Others 3,400 1,600 5,000

Table 2.3.1 : Postgraduate fee according to courses in Malaysia

Adapted from: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/malaysia/mt_edu_cnt1.html [14 April 2009]

The figures in the table above is based on pound sterling, which means based on

education fee and average living cost per academic year students studying in the United

Kingdom is paying double the amount students in local university is paying. Study

opportunities in Malaysia are plentiful and the cost of study for an equivalent quality

Bachelor’s degree or English is well below the fee charged by universities in other study

destinations.

It is safe to assume that students can save up to RMI00,000 in Malaysia, instead of going

to the traditional education-associated countries such as the UK, USA, Australia work out

to be considerably cheaper in Malaysia, due to the competitive cost of education

programmes which are paid in reasonable costs, and the overall stability of the currency

exchange rates.

2.4 Courses offered

Courses offered are the field of study that is offered to students in colleges or universities.

These courses are offered according to the programs we have selected as students.

Variance of courses offered does influence student when choosing a place to study. A

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wide range of courses offered reflects that the universities or colleges put their thought on

the students need for better education. Most colleges or universities in Malaysia offered

courses according to need of the Malaysian government. Nevertheless the Working do

believe that courses offered in the United Kingdom is not much of difference as the

courses in Malaysia since both nation has almost the same education background.

However, in Malaysia, to ensure that you have the correct qualification and the

Malaysian government has put up an accreditation board that will only recognize the

courses given if the course is up to the standard set by this accreditation board. Therefore

the same course offered in Malaysian local university may receive approval from the

accreditation board but the same course offered in the UK might not receive the

accreditation from the board. This basically means that under the same course, a student

who study in Malaysia will have a recognize certificate whereas a student who studied in

the UK will not have the same recognition over her certificate.

By far, there are two accreditation board that exsist in Malaysia which are LAN or

Lembaga Akredetasi Negara and MQA or Malaysian Qualification Agency that would

pay close inspections towards the quality of courses provided by colleges and universities

in Malaysia.

3.0 Conclusion

Based on the findings above the working has seen that Malaysia has all the necessities

needed to become an education tourism hub for this region. Malaysian competitiveness

can be categorized based on lower cost of living compared to the United Kingdom,

abundance of comfortable and affordable accommodation near to learning facilities,

lower education fee with the same quality of education as offered in United Kingdom and

last but not least has competitive list of courses offered in universities and colleges.

Based on these findings, the Working would like to recommend to the Council some of

the way that can be adopted in ordered to promote and build Malaysia’s image as world

class education tourism provider.

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3.1 Recommendation

i. Give more accreditation to courses offered in colleges and universities.

Accreditation should be given according to the standard required but more

courses should receive this accreditation to allow the students undergoing the

courses to have better future career wise .

ii. Larger promotional scale should be conducted in and outside of the country to

help foreign students to have first hand information regarding studying in

Malaysia.

iii. Conduct more exchange students programs to allow these students to feel and see

Malaysia for real by collaborating with Ministry of Higher education

iv. Create more short courses that would allow the foreign students to undergo

shorter courses and at the same time give them ample time to enjoy the Malaysia.

v. Invite more foreign college and universities to set up branches in Malaysia.

In short, the Working hopes that the Board will take into consideration all the suggestions

above in order to improve Malaysia competitiveness as one of the education tourism hub

in this region.

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