Malaysia Witnessed Growing Appeal as a Study Destination Among International Students

Malaysia is slowly and steadily recognizing the potential it has, as a possible international education hub. With the decrease in the numbers of traditional power centers (the big 4 ) of the field, Malaysia is looking at this as an opportunity to rise as the new power in the international education market.

It also has a lot going for it, to make it come true.

· Low tuition costs and living costs, when compared to the foreign giants of the market. Approximately US$ 6000 annually, when considering undergraduate studies. Which is almost a quarter of what for the similar study programs in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia.

· In the top 500 universities of the QS rankings, 8 Malaysian universities find their name.

· Muslim majority nation that Malaysia is, finds traction in Asian and African countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt.

A lot of the top senders to Malaysia are Asian and African countries, while there is a lot of representation from China as well, in fact the largest, as Malaysia is home to a lot of communities from China. Also, its proximity to China and presence of a vast Chinese community has encouraged a lot of Chinese population to come and study in Malaysia.

As per Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS) Data of 2023, China has the highest number of applications to study in Malaysia with 26000+, followed by Bangladesh at 6,500, which also shows a 94% hike in numbers from Bangladesh as compared to the last year. In the 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2024 demand from South Asia tripled in numbers, on the back of incredible demand from China. From India, 1900 students went to Malaysia for study in 2023 which was historically a rise of 18%.

Malaysia offers a 12-month Post Study Graduate Pass to students of 23 countries including Australia, the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, UAE, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and Finland which are not major senders of students to Malaysia. Recently Malaysia has started giving the 1year graduate pass to students from India and China as well, and this leads to increased interest to study in Malaysia from these two countries. The Graduate Pass rule for Indian and Chinese students was initially set with certain guidelines till 2024, which now has been extended till 2026.

Malaysia’s concerted efforts to turn it into a global education hub have already started showing its effects, with Malaysia’s global page visits already increasing by 25%, maximum page views coming in from countries like USA, UAE and Saudi Arabia. This increase in global page views can also be attributed to availability of graduate pass to international students.

Malaysia as a nation recognizes the opportunity international education bring to its way, in terms of shaping the global perception of the nation, more research funding, overcoming traditional obstacles, having several international communities in the nation, the transaction of culture and the distributed global graph of academic power. Malaysia is targeting 250,000 student mark by 2025.

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