Plans to propel education into international limelight

By The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Education in Malaysia will be branded and propelled into international limelight by 2020 to attract 200,000 foreign students here.

According to the Education National Key Area lab findings, Malaysia is currently ranked 11th globally because of its 60,000 foreign student population.

“We hope to improve the ranking to sixth spot and increase our foreign student enrolment to 200,000 by 2020.

“We must establish a clear Malaysian brand of good quality education,” lab participants told those who attended the Economic Transformation Programme Open Day here yesterday. The participants were a mix of government officials, corporate individuals and education experts.

The Education NKEA is expected to create an additional 536,000 jobs and increase its Gross National Income from RM34bil to RM61bil by 2020.

Meanwhile, the Communications, Content and Infrastructure NKEA aims to ensure broadband Internet access is available for all at a reasonable speed.

Its goals by 2020 include connecting 6,000 schools and getting 50% of services online, including having six million users and an additional 860,000 wireless broadband users.

This sector is expected to contribute RM58bil to the GNI by 2020 compared to RM36bil last year.