Foreign students - socialising with the locals?

To build on Kian Ming's points about students from Botswana, I thought I would relate my own experience from spending one-and-a-half years at a local college with many foreign students, especially from Botswana.

As I mentioned before, I did my A-Levels in KDU College, an institution that has attracted many foreign students interested in pursuing degrees in law, engineering, and other disciplines. My foreign classmates were mostly from the Maldives, India and Bangladesh, and most of them had no problem integrating with the locals.

At the same time, there were often a lot of students from other countries in other programs - guys from Botswana, Mauritius, places in the Middle East. One thing I observed is that most of the African students kept to themselves in their own cliques, while students from other places mixed with the locals freely.

To some extent this can be attributed to racial attitudes. People from the Indian subcontinent look like locals, and so we probably have an easier time relating to them than we might with someone from the Middle East or Africa. A lot of my friends, especially the girls, were frightened of or otherwise not interested in mixing with African students. So I can see where the Botswana government is coming from when they worry about their students having a hard time integrating into Malaysian society.

But I think the real and main problem is one which Malaysians who study abroad might have noticed themselves: we stick to groups we are familiar with, to people we feel an existing kinship with. In UK universities for example, you often find colonies and cliques of Malaysians and Singaporeans who don't really talk to people outside their group. The experience of being in a foreign country and mixing with different people is largely gone because we climb into our own shells.

The same, I think, has happened with students from Botswana. Because their government sends them over in such big groups, they clump and stick together in their own groups; they feel no need to approach locals and befriend them, and the locals feel intimidated at the thought of entering a large group of people they are completely unfamiliar with. Students who have come over because of their own private initiative, by themselves, don't seem to encounter such problems finding a group of Malaysians to hang out with.

Looking back, one remarkable thing about many of my friends from other countries is how quickly and enjoyably they adapted themselves to Malaysian student life. Many of them mamaked and DOTAed in cybercafes with the Malaysians as if they had been doing this their whole lives; they made the most out of the Malaysian experience. And the cultural exchange went both ways; we learned Mauritian creole and the politics of the Maldives from our international friends. When foreign students mingle with local students, everyone benefits.

Now, I cannot say for sure how justified the complaints of some foreign students like those from Botswana are. Maybe the true reason for their difficulties in adjusting is something besides their social isolation. Without an empirical study it is hard to say. But I can see why students from Botswana would complain about this, and if we want to address this, we must understand the social dynamics international students encounter. Cliquing is prevalent wherever international students are; it even exists to a large extent at Dartmouth in the US, where I am studying. But if we want internationals to make the most out of their studies and stay here, we must figure out a way to integrate them better into the mainstream of student life.

Botswanan students have it hard?

Maybe I was jumping the gun in saying that Malaysia is a good place for international students to come to especially those who are from Muslim majority countries. The Star reported that the Education and Skills Development Minister of Botswana, Jacob Nkate, said that they would be cutting down the number of students sent to Malaysia because they were not acclimatising well to life in Malaysia.

The Minister's decision was influenced partly because of the social issues some of the Botswanan students have encountered while studying in Malaysia. Two of them died after falling from their apartment balconies and another was killed in a road accident. It was reported that the students blamed the hostile environment they encountered in Malaysia that forced many of them to turn to alcoholism and other anti-social behaviour.

This is not the first time I've heard of the challenges faced by foreign students in Malaysia. The ugly head of racism usually rears its head partly because we don't have a long history having foreign students in our universities, especially our private universities and colleges. I'm also guessing that many of these foreign students especially those from Africa also have to deal with racism on the part of shopkeepers, taxi drivers and the like.

This is not to say that Malaysian students going abroad don't face these kinds of challenges. I myself had one or two racist comments thrown at me while I was doing my Masters in Cambridge. But most Malaysians are used to the idea of going overseas to study and many of us have good support systems when we go abroad. Also, a majority of us end up in universities where foreigners comprise a significant proportion of the student population. Many of the professors and lecturers and administrators in these universities are also more used to dealing with foreigners. All these factors help us adjust more easily to life abroad.

My sense is that the onus should fall firstly on the administrative and management staff of our private colleges and universities, where most of the foreign and I'm guessing Botswanan students end up. If they haven't already, they need to set up structures and support systems which can identify and help foreign students who are having problems adjusting to life in Malaysia. In addition, they should 'recruit' their own local students to help these foreign students adjust to academic life in Malaysia. I'm sure that many of these universities and colleges are already doing these things already. But this is a good reminder that these efforts should continue or be stepped up. After all, the management staff are the ones with a more direct incentive to make sure that agencies such as the Botswanan government keeps on sending their students to our private colleges and universities.

Ideally, MOHE might do some coordinating activities to ensure that some of the best practices in terms of dealing with different foreign students can be transferred between the different colleges and universities, both private and public.

Of course, there are limits to how much the university administrators can do. (Remember the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech?) But try they must.

P.S. I know that Botswana is not a Muslim majority country. But the points made here should be applicable to other foreign students who are from Muslims majority countries. Just because they come to a Muslim majority country like Malaysia does not mean that they will not encounter challenges like racism as well as the many temptations to 'let loose', so to speak.

Doubling number of foreign students - a good thing?

The push to increase the number of foreign students in Malaysia is continuing, according to Tok Pa, as recently reported in the Star. This is not something new as I've blogged about this here and here. I've expressed my doubts on whether our public and private universities have the capacity to absorb foreign students at the postgrad level. Tony probably has similar doubts on the capacity of our private universities and colleges to absorb these questions at the undergraduate level. Let me share some more thoughts about this issue.

In the Star report, it was reported that 'Malaysia aims to double to 100,000 the number of foreign students at local institutions of higher learning by 2010, Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said.'

He also said that 'Government would embark on a two-prong approach to realise the target, which he described as a “significant increase” to achieve the goal to turn the country into a centre of education excellence.'

The two-prong approach is presumably the approach of attracting foreign students both at the undergraduate as well as the postgraduate level.

Generally speaking, I'm in favor of expanding the education sector, especially the private sector, in Malaysia as an alternative source of employment and growth given that our manufacturing base is declining. Why 'especially the private sector'? It costs less for the government, it doesn't take up valuable spaces in the public universities, there's arguably more capacity or spaces in private universities and colleges. While Tony's concerns in regards to the education standards in many of these private colleges and universities are definitely legitimate, I think that competition among the private universities will slowly raise the educational standards in the top-tier private universities such as Nottingham, Monash at Sunway and perhaps HELP and SEDAYA just to name a few more prominent private colleges. As foreign students become more discerning and more information becomes available, they will be able to sift out the more 'legit' private universities versus the more 'dubious' ones.

I'm less supportive of increasing the number of foreign students in public universities firstly because as mentioned above, they take up valuable spaces which should be reserved largely for Malaysian students, especially if they are also heavily subsidized by the Malaysian government. I'm not so averse to having more post-grads at the public universities, especially if they are NOT subsidized by the Malaysian government, because the demand for postgrad studies among Malaysians is lower and because of the possible value added among these foreign post-grads to higher education in Malaysian (potential future lecturers and researchers) as well as to the larger economy (potential knowledge workers).

So some future points to ponder:

- Where will the increase in foreign students in Malaysia occur? (Private undergrad, private postgrad, public undergrad, public postgrad)
- Where are these foreign students coming from? (It's better to have a wide distribution of students from different countries and regions rather than having them come predominantly from one region)
- How are the public and private universities responding to these increases? Do they have the capacity to do so?
- How will the interests of Malaysian students, especially at the undergrad level in public universities, be safeguarded?
- What can and will be done to ensure that foreign students are not 'cheated' by private universities in terms of overpromising and underdelivering? (the same level of protection should be afforded to Malaysian students as well of course)
- Are there certain fields at the postgrad levels (such as science and engineering) which are being targeted, especially in public universities?

My ideal policy outcomes would be something like:

- Increasing standards in private universities by forcing them to compete for foreign students, both at the postgrad and undergrad levels
- Ability to attract quality postgrad students from different countries / regions to public universities
- Steady growth for the education sector as a whole in Malaysia
- Ample 'protections' for both local and foreign students

In the meantime, we'll be tracking this issue very closely.