Global Education: Wooing students to Japan and China

Japan aims to step up its recruitment of foreign students by increasing the number of courses taught in English, write SUZIEANA UDA NAGU and SHARIFAH ARFAH।

THE news that Waseda University in Tokyo had the most number of international students among Japanese tertiary institutions as of last year came as no surprise to those who are familiar with the university.
“I do feel as if I’m in a European country whenever I visit Waseda University,” says Norhana Rashid (not her real name), a Malaysian who resides in Tokyo.
She was responding to a report in Japan Today, a Tokyo-based online newspaper, that the population of foreign students in the country has reached a record 132,720 as of May last year — up 8,891 from the previous year.
According to Japan Student Services Organisation, Waseda University has 3,125 students, followed by Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Oita Prefecture with 2,786 and the University of Tokyo with 2,473.
Waseda University received its first foreign student in 1899 from China and has taken in many more since then.
Similar to other institutions in Japan, students from China, Korea and Taiwan form the majority of foreign learners at Waseda University.
In the university’s bid to become a truly global campus, it aims to accept 8,000 international students — 4,000 undergraduates and 4,000 postgraduates — and increase the ratio of foreign professors to local ones by 20 per cent in the near future.
Recruiting Malaysian students at the Facon Education Fair held in Kuala Lumpur recently is line with this goal, says Waseda University Southeast Asia office regional manager Masaki Tamada.
“We currently have only 41 Malaysians on campus and we would like more to join us. In fact, we hope to recruit more from Southeast Asia,” adds Tamada.
If the university’s ties with approximately 500 universities across 70 countries are not impressive enough, Tamada hopes that students from this region would consider Waseda based on the 34 courses— 13 undergraduate and 21 postgraduate — delivered in English.
There is a growing interest in China among foreign learners. Higher Education Deputy Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung and former University of Malaya vice chancellor Datuk Rafiah Salim congratulate UM undergraduates on being selected for an exchange programme between Beijing Foreign Studies University and UM.
“From this year onwards, Political Science and certain Science programmes will also be in English,” says Tamada. The education sector worldwide is increasingly reliant on income from overseas students’ fees.
With so many countries fighting for a slice of the international student market cake, players must be creative in commercialising their education services.
Given international students’ preference for Anglo-Saxon countries (such as Australia and the United Kingdom) as study destinations, other countries view courses delivered in English as the answer to levelling the playing field.
In France, about 500 programmes are taught in English. The move to offer English courses is driven by the notion that English — which is spoken by 500 million people as opposed to 220 million French speakers — is the tongue of international teaching.
Japan — which is among the top countries after China and India, which have been fuelling the growth of international students’ market in English-speaking countries — is also seriously considering courses taught in English as part of its internationalisation efforts.
Two years ago, Japan unveiled its ambitious plan to recruit 300,000 international students by 2020.
The Global 30 Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalisation was the mechanism implemented to realise this goal — through select measures, which include the recruitment of foreign students and establishment of internationalisation centres.
Waseda University is among the 13 universities identified to spearhead the Global 30 initiative.
“They will receive prioritised financial assistance of between ¥200 and ¥400 million (RM14.75 million) annually for the next five years. With this aid, each university will strive to recruit 3,000 to 8,000 international students,” noted the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry website.
Yokohama National University (YNU) may not be among the 13 chosen academies but it has taken its own initiative to introduce programmes in English.
Associate Professor Yamamoto Yasuo believes this is the way forward for Japan “as it is facing tough competition for international students”.
YNU will first introduce English courses at the postgraduate level.
“Soon, those pursuing Master’s degree programmes in Infrastructure Management; Public Policy and Taxation; and doctoral degrees in Engineering, can complete their dissertations in English,” says Yasuo, who heads the YNU task force for designing English programmes.
“This will enable foreign students to study in Japan even with minimum proficiency in the language,” adds Yasuo, who was at the Facon Education Fair with his team to promote courses at YNU to Malaysian students.
“YNU is making great efforts to take on foreign students from Malaysia and neighbouring countries. We currently have only 18 Malaysian students,” he says. Meanwhile, Chinese universities are banking on the popularity of Mandarin and traditional Chinese medicine among foreign learners to boost their student numbers.
It is reported that the number of non-Chinese people learning Mandarin outside of China has soared to 30 million in the last five years.
“Many want to learn Mandarin as they believe that China will be the dominant power in the 21st century and employment opportunities for those with a proficiency in Mandarin are immense,” states a 2007-report in The Economist.
Beijing’s Capital Medical University (CMU) Office of International Cooperation officer David Feng hopes the growing international interest in traditional Chinese medicine will persuade Malaysians to join the university.
“The influence of traditional Chinese medicine is great and more people globally are accepting it as an alternative form of treatment. So far, we have only one Malaysian undergraduate at CMU and we hope more will join us as we are one of China’s top medical institutions,” says Feng.
Beijing University of Technology (BUT), a multi-disciplinary university established in 1960, receives about 500 foreign students yearly.
BUT International Exchanges department officer Zhou Yuan says: “However, we don’t have any Malaysians on campus. We know that about 24 per cent of Malaysians are ethnic Chinese.
“We hope the economic prosperity of Malaysia will spur them on to invest in education in China.”
Re-engineer the education market
JAPANESE and Chinese universities may have popular appeal but they do not pose much threat to private educational institutions in Malaysia.UCSI University Business Development and Student Affairs vice-president Moses Ling Wei says: “There is no real competition as Malaysia also has a wide appeal.” Aside from strong government support, Malaysia has a multicultural society that many foreign students want to experience.
“Having English as a second language has also helped boost student numbers,” he adds.
Foreign students are also attracted to the low cost of living, good infrastructure and political stability in Malaysia.
“Our position in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has put us on the world map and indirectly influenced students from other Muslim countries to study here,” he says.
While some foreign students may find Malaysia attractive, others may choose Japan and China for their strengths.
“China positions itself as the place to study Mandarin, Chinese Literature and traditional Chinese medicine, while Japan is the country for Biotechnology and Automobile courses.
“There is also strong government backing to attract foreign students in these two countries, which is why they have been active in promoting their courses in Malaysia.” He adds that the education scene, like any other industry, is bound to face competition and this is something which local players have already anticipated.
Taylor’s University College vice chancellor and president Professor Datuk Hassan Said agrees.
“We already have 70,000 international students and are aiming for 150,000 by 2020. Most other countries also aspire to raise their international profile and intake of foreign students,” says Hassan.
That China and Japan are keen to recruit Malaysian students should be taken as a sign that “they recognise the quality of our students and education system”.
Hassan believes that the competition for students with other countries does Malaysia a lot of good.
“This means we have to strive to provide top-notch services to our students,” he says.
Ling agrees.
“(Competition) creates a healthy market force which will spur on business opportunities and ultimately re-engineer the education market.” As visa restrictions on those bound for Western countries become tighter, more students are looking towards Asia as their study destination.
“We in Malaysia need to be flexible in order to remain attractive to international students,” says Ling.
What’s on offer
AS of last May, there are 2,395 Malaysian students pursuing their studies in Japan. They make up the fifth largest international student population in Japan after China, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. On the other hand, there are more than 1,300 Malaysians students in China as of last year.
However, Japanese and Chinese tertiary institutions feel that the number is too small and are aggressively recruiting Malaysian students.
Representatives of these institutions which participated in the recent Facon Education Fair held in Kuala Lumpur shared what they have to offer to Malaysian students.
Senshu University International academic affairs foreign student adviser Koji Ogawa “We have never had very many Malaysians on campus and we hope that our 128-year-old history as a private university in Chiyoda, Tokyo founded at the dawn of modern Japan would entice them to join us.
In addition to this, our strength is in the Social Sciences. We are proud to have the largest number of undergraduates and postgraduates pursuing courses in the Social Sciences in Japan.” Takasaki City University of Economics senior lecturer Professor Takeshi Mizuguchi “We are a municipal university located in Takasaki City in Gunma Prefecture, which began as a junior college in 1952 and became a university in 1957 with only one faculty — Economics.
Being a small university run by the regional government, we are able to keep our fees lower than most institutions in Japan.
We have participated in several education fairs to boost the number of Malaysian students who are interested in Economics, Management or Regional Policy courses. Currently we have only one Malaysian student.” North China Electric Power University (NCEPU) foreign students director Wu Chungqing “NCEPU was founded in 1958 and has two campuses — in Beijing and Baoding. Support from China’s seven biggest electric power plants has helped us become one of the foremost universities in Engineering studies.
Of some 35,000 students, we only have about 200 foreign students — most are mature learners. We don’t have any Malaysians on campus yet, so we hope to attract some at the education fair.
If there are enough Malaysians pursuing Engineering at NCEPU, a cooperative can be established between Malaysia and China, where graduates can work in the field of Engineering in Malaysia and benefit from technology transfer.
For example, should our Vietnamese students graduate from NCEPU and return home, they would be the top choice of Chinese companies affiliated with the seven power plants when they establish projects in Vietnam.” Renmin University of China (RUC) International students office officer Li Lianjing “RUC specialises in Humanities and Social Sciences but, oddly enough, most students who visited our booth were keen to know more about courses in Economics and Engineering, which we do not offer.
We are not discounting the possibility of RUC offering these courses in the future since there is demand for them.
We welcome Malaysian students as they generally perform well. We currently have about 200 Malaysians on campus pursuing various undergraduate courses.” Beijing International Chinese College (BICC) teaching affairs department project supervisor Sun Wei “BICC was established only five years ago and it is devoted to the international promotion of Chinese language.
It hopes to promote Chinese language through the training of Mandarin teachers, organising language camps and standardised Chinese language proficiency tests.
BICC has around 300 international students from 40 countries, including eight from Malaysia.
We are currently seeking students to enrol on the Master’s degree in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, which emphasises the history of China, Chinese culture, and inter-cultural communication, aside from listening and speaking.
We hope that our students can eventually teach the language at university level.”

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