Search

Leadership has been considered as an essential foundation for universities to flourish, more so in the context of emerging higher education systems. Using an exploratory qualitative approach, this paper reviews the challenges and prospects in the development of higher education leaders in selected countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). While variations were reported by the respondents, the challenges were somewhat similar: lack of leadership development policy and training centres, the non-availability and questionable quality of programmes, the irrelevance of western and corporate leadership theories, and the lack of systematic talent management programmes. For the lower income countries' respondents, contextual issues seemed to affect leadership development. Since there seems to be inadequate leadership development systems in most ASEAN countries, we propose a synergistic approach among stakeholders with tracked records in intra- and inter-regional level capacity building to design and monitor programme implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the transnational trajectories of female Malaysian Muslim students through their commitment to piety-minded forms of Islam. In particular, it seeks to identify the reasons for their participation in piety movements and its importance to their lives. The ethnographic research, conducted over 8 months, involved 18 Malaysian female respondents who were studying and living in Manchester between 2016 and 2017. The findings show that the students' involvement in piety movements was due to fictive kinship providing generous hospitality upon their arrival to the United Kingdom, pre-departure programs on preparation for studying abroad, family influence and sisterhood relationships. Participation in piety movements is said to help relieve stress and overcome loneliness, and is considered vital in guiding Muslim students to lead fulfilling and virtuous lives. The findings contribute significantly to transnational student mobility theories and the importance of sociality and religion in transnational migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a university system, the key to identifying and rewarding excellence is through academic promotion to professorship. However, research on the characteristics of professors as excellent academic leaders and how they enact leadership activities is very limited. The main issues include unclear definition of excellent professors and in-depth research on the notion and concept of academic leadership. Thus, this study aims to explore the elements of excellence among senior professors in the Malaysian public universities by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their leadership contributions. Based on a qualitative study and using a document analysis approach on curriculum vitae, ten senior professors holding VK 5 post (Grade A) were selected as respondents using purposive sampling method. They represented the four types of public universities namely research, comprehensive, technical and focused. The findings revealed that in general, the senior professors' excellent contribution is unbalanced and skewed towards elements related to teaching, research and management. The senior professors reported less contribution involving professional development and public intellectual activities. The findings also showed that they contributed excessively to activities within their own university ecosystem, but less on activities outside their university, and at the regional and international levels. The findings point to several implications for academic leadership theories, policy development, and the status and relevance of the academic profession in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) has been identified as an essential item on Malaysia's agenda for transforming itself into knowledge and innovation-based economy. However, despite the efforts, most initiatives have had limited results. This paper reports on an explorative study that sought to understand the contemporary realities of UIC in the Malaysian context. In particular, the study identified the expectations and impediments to UIC, from the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders - the academics, the industry players and policymakers. The findings reveal a number of barriers, including cultural differences, perceived lack of academic expertise and reputation, an inadequacy of institutional policies and regulations, lack of trust, issues of intellectual property rights, and the lack of an appropriate reward system. This paper concludes by proposing policy recommendations and strategies that could be used by the government, university, and the industry to promote further and foster university-industry collaborative opportunities and initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future of Malaysia as a high-income and competitive nation largely depends on its pool of highly skilled human capital. Hence, the issue of human capital development has taken centre stage in numerous reform agendas of Malaysia. This paper seeks to provide examples of policy initiatives aimed at facilitating the management of highly educated talent in Malaysia. It subsequently considers the role of higher education institutions, particularly the universities, as attractors, educators and retainers of intellectuals, in shaping talent. In conclusion, we argue that more significant underlying shortcomings of talent development are derived from the still transitional nature of the reforms and incomplete structural changes occurring in the national system, and that a change in mindset is the first necessary step towards nurturing and developing a human resource talent pool. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The expansion and transformation of Malaysian universities have generated major changes in the nature of academic employment and the structure of academic promotion in higher education institutions. These changes have considerable implications, in particular for the policy and practice of academic promotion in the public universities. We argue that despite sharing one common grade and salary system, distinct and significant differences exist in the academic promotion systems of the public universities. Drawing on one recent study on the academic promotion process in Malaysian public universities to contextualise our discussion, this paper highlights the complexity in the promotion process in these institutions. It also discusses and articulates the attendant issues and challenging aspects of the academic promotion process. We argue that the interrelated issues and challenges, and certain academic practices and habits stemming from the pressure to gain a promotion are pervasive, and that they affect the academic value system and work culture. We conclude by asserting the importance of applying a consistent standard for promotion within a single salary system and that the academic promotion system in the public universities should ultimately affirm and communicate core academic values, and also aim at obtaining evidence of excellent accomplishments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Geopark is an innovative developmental approach that was introduced globally and it gives serious attention to the concept of a holistic development covering aspects of heritage conservation, community development, socio-economic improvement and public education. Efforts to integrate all the above aspects require a good integrated governance system that builds networking and common understanding between all the stakeholders. An integrated governance system implies that there is a need to find shared values as a binding agent of social relations at the organisational, institutional, and individual levels. This paper is based on an exploratory study that aims to identify the major components of shared values in order to strengthen the local community's common agenda for heritage conservation and sustainable livelihood. The study employed focus group discussions involving 21 respondents representing 15 stakeholders in Kilim Geoforest Park. The data collected were transcribed verbatim and went through various levels of data processing before arriving at the final themes. Five main components of shared values were developed which are: (1) natural and cultural heritage conservation; (2) infrastructure and support systems; (3) tourism and socio-economic development; (4) transfer and dissemination of knowledge; and (5) ecosystem sustainability. In general, the values of commitment, cleanliness, safety and carrying capacity received particular attention among the community stakeholders in their efforts to ensure a sustainable development of ecotourism in Kilim. Based on the findings, a framework for public education was developed grounded on the five shared values that takes into consideration the functions and responsibilities of each of the stakeholders. The educational intervention gives attention to two approaches which are stakeholder's and shared value approaches. It is hoped that the identified shared values can be incorporated into the development of an integrated governance system in Langkawi Geopark in order to help achieve the objectives of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy decision-making in Malaysia has long used an approach based on intuition, ideology, or conventional wisdom. But as Malaysian society matures within an increasingly complex policy environment, a move toward an evidence-based approach to public policy-making is called for. This paper discusses the experience of the National Higher Education Research Institute (IPPTN) in its attempts at linking research to higher education policy formulation. The main aim is to understand the perspectives of the IPPTN researchers regarding the use and impact of higher education research on policy-making, and the challenges they experienced. The findings provide insights into the future of evidence-based higher education policy-making in Malaysia and the IPPTN's capacity and capability for evidence-based policy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of globalisation has undoubtedly impacted countries, bringing about different challenges for each country, region and locality. Many countries have responded positively to the demands and challenges through a societal transformation process with an emphasis on developing tertiary education, research and innovative capacities. Drawing upon our experience with two cases of newly developed learning regions, Kuala Lumpur city-region and Iskandar Malaysia region, we examine Malaysia's effort at transforming its higher education system in the context of learning region objectives. Key government policies, namely, the Tenth Malaysia Plan, the National Higher Education Strategic Plan 2007-2020, the Economic Transformation Programme as well as documents of the learning regions' master plans were included in the document analysis. Although it remains to be seen how the learning regions will emerge, the experience in transforming higher education based on the learning region concept is highly relevant to developing countries that are attempting to shift their traditional economy to a more knowledge-intensive economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is motivated by concern about the decline in the numbers of males entering the teaching profession in Malaysia. It seeks to explore first year student teachers’ views of teaching as a career choice and to determine the factors that influenced their decision to enter the teaching profession. A total of 425 student teachers completed a questionnaire in which they were asked to rate factors that influenced their decision to become teachers following which a comparison by gender was made. The findings of the study reveal that male and female student teachers have similar motives in selecting teaching as a career. Generally, both groups emphasise altruistic and extrinsic factors. This paper discusses the findings in relation to wider issues concerning gender, and draws conclusions which may be helpful to policy-makers and institutions in the recruitment of students into pre-service teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported in this paper represents one of the first attempts at exploring the perspectives of the local communities on the designation of Langkawi Island in Malaysia as a UNESCO Global Geopark. It is premised on the widely acknowledged assertion that the local communities constitute an important group of stakeholders in the planning and implementation of development activities. Hence, the communities living in the geopark areas in Langkawi are considered important stakeholders who play a crucial role in the development of heritage tourism in Langkawi Global Geopark. This paper examines their views on their appreciation of the geopark as heritage, the interpretation of their shared values, the benefits and opportunities afforded by the geopark, and the extent of their involvement in the implementation of geopark activities. The findings point to the need for more support for public education programmes, and awareness initiatives aimed not only at ensuring community engagement with the development of Langkawi Geopark but also at generating stewardship actions from the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation of research performance has significantly increased in importance, particularly in many emerging higher education systems. In Malaysia, the Malaysian Research Assessment (MyRA) was developed to evaluate the research performance of universities and Research Centres of Excellence (RCoEs). This paper reports on a participatory action research approach aimed at developing a new framework for measuring research performance of Malaysian RCoEs. The introduction provides the contexts leading to the development and adoption of the MyRA including the challenges and its appropriateness as a tool for evaluating the research performance of relatively smaller entities namely, RCoEs. A stepwise approach in developing an alternative system of assessment for RCoEs is then described, leading to a list of prioritised components and criteria for the newly proposed tool. Finally, some of the wider implications of the new assessment framework are discussed, including the applicability to other contexts, lessons learned, and the contribution to the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes whether academics with advanced degrees from foreign universities are more research productive than their domestic counterparts in the three selected East Asian higher education systems - Korea, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The three systems have relatively large proportions of foreign degree holders among their professoriates. The data for this study is drawn from the Changing Academic Profession survey. In our negative binominal regression analysis, we found that foreign degree holders are not more research productive than their colleagues with domestic degrees, and even slightly less productive than domestic degree holders in soft disciplines (arts, humanities, and social sciences) in Korea unless they have further foreign post-doc experience after their PhD. Furthermore, foreign degree holders are less productive in hard disciplines (natural sciences, engineering, and bio-medical sciences) in Malaysia. Finally, we discuss the findings and attribute them to contextual differences between the three localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]