Gov't Aims To Attract 200,000 International Students By 2020 - DPM

NUSAJAYA (Johor, Malaysia) Sept 5 (Bernama) -- The government aims to attract at least 200,000 international students to Malaysia by 2020, further cementing the country's status as one of the world's largest exporters of educational services, Muhyiddin Yassin said Wednesday. The deputy prime minister and education minister said Malaysia had increased its attractiveness as a tertiary education provider in the global market place. "The country is currently the world's 11th largest exporter of educational services, providing a place to study for over 90,000 students from over 100 nations," he said. Muhyiddin spoke at the ground-breaking of the Nusajaya campus of the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) at Educity, Nusajaya, here. The RM300-million (US$91.5 million) MDIS campus is the largest overseas investment for the Singapore-based educational institution. Muhyiddin said the education services sector was one of the targeted nine economic pillars in the Comprehensive Development Plan of the Iskandar Malaysia development corridor, offering excellent investment opportunities for local and foreign investors. The government, he said, had made a conscious decision to prioritise the private education sector. "One of the Entry Point Projects identified under Malaysia's Economic Transformation Programme is to transform the economic growth corridor in Johor into Asia's choice destination for education by attracting renowned international universities and colleges," he said. Educity in Nusajaya will make world-class education more accessible to Malaysians and other people in the region, he said, adding that the education enclave was expected to accommodate 16,000 students at full capacity. The deputy prime minister said 214 acres (86.6 hectares) or 70 per cent of the total 300 acres (121.4 hectares) of Educity had been developed, with three campuses and two shared facilities currently in full operation. These include the campuses of Newcastle University, Marlborough College Malaysia and University of Southampton, while the Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology is scheduled to open its campus next month. "We will see more institutions operating in Educity in the next three years," said Muhyiddin. He said he was pleased that the tertiary education sector in Iskandar Malaysia was now drawing the attention of many international investors, including those from Singapore. Besides MDIS, another Singapore group, Raffles Education Corp, is developing a RM200-million (US$61 million) self-contained dedicated campus known as the Raffles University Iskandar, which is due to open in 2015. Muhyiddin welcomed such cross-border investments from Singapore, saying the republic boasted some of the best tertiary institutions in the world and Educity in Nusajaya could complement the republic's attractiveness as an education hub. "There is much we can gain by joining forces to woo the best brains to study within our shores, instead of competing against one another, which will only result in lost opportunities and failure to capitalise on our strategic strengths," he said. -- BERNAMA