International education as tourism product: The Malaysia experience

• Main Authors: Ndanusa, Mohammed Manzuma-Ndaaba, Harada, Yoshifumi, Romle, Abd Rahim, Olanrewaju, Kareem
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ISLAMIC WORLD Network for Environmental Science and Technology (IWNEST Publisher) 2015
• Subjects: G Geography (General)
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/14307/1/74-81.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/14307/; http://www.iwnest.com/AACE/

Background: The effect of globalization is noticed on the volume of movement of people, ideas, skills and professionalism across international boundaries in today‘s knowledge economy.For every international trip, a new knowledge is shared, gained or transferred.However, international students that seek to explore this intellectual property are not usually considered as tourist because of varying length of their study.But evidence abounds to show the interrelationship between tourism and international education which made the two inseparable but rather complimentary. Objective: The socio-economic benefits of this sector to the budgetary health of the host country made Malaysia to open up higher education services to foreign students in the mid-90s.In the 9th Malaysian plan [1] 100,000 international students was targeted to enroll in Malaysia higher education institutions by the 2010. A significant milestone was achieved but not fully realized. The 10th Malaysia plan [2] have set yet another target of 200, 000 inbound international students for 2020. To determine the economic impacts of educational liberalization to Malaysia.Results: This paper conceptually examined the impact of international students on the economy of Malaysia and the potentiality of the sector if fully integrated into the country‘s tourism concerns. Conclusion: The need for synergy between Malaysia ministry of tourism and ministry of higher education is being can versed for optimum economic benefits.This paper echoes the position of international students as EDUTOURIST.