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Cheng 2017 The Southeast Asian Higher Education Space Transnational International or National in New Ways
Cheng 2017 The Southeast Asian Higher Education Space Transnational International or National in New Ways
research-article2017
EER0010.1177/1474904117699627European Educational Research JournalCheng
new ways?
Mien W Cheng
Monash University, Australia
Abstract
In the last 20 years, reforms of higher education have produced a Southeast Asian higher
education space. It resembles the European educational space in being a supra-national
development and some scholars suggest it is inspired by Europeanization. These reforms include
credit transfer, twinning, distance learning, and academic mobility programmes. But, researchers
are divided about the character of these reforms. Some scholars describe these developments
as ‘transnational higher education’ but others suggest that dual degree programmes, such
as those between Britain and Malaysia, are ‘international’ initiatives. Is the ‘dual degree’ an
international or transnational space of higher education? Using the concept of ‘curriculum
making’ to understand the cultural character of dual degree programmes, this paper reports
on an interview-based study of curriculum writing in Malaysia to understand the character
of Malaysian–British dual degrees. The experiences of two Malaysian curriculum writers are
drawn upon to explain the process of curriculum making, how discussions about content and
organization of curriculum are resolved, and the complexities of these curriculum decisions. I
argue that the dual degrees are neither strictly transnational nor international in character but
a novel intersectional education space where ‘Europeanization’ and ‘transnational’ influences
inflect historic understandings of Malaysian higher education.
Keywords
Higher education space, transnational, international, curriculum making, Southeast Asia,
Malaysia, European
Corresponding author:
Mien W Cheng, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Building 6, Clayton campus, Clayton, 3800, Australia.
Email: mwche12@student.monash.edu
794 European Educational Research Journal 17(6)
Overview
Historical settings
Southeast Asia (SEA) is a region comprising eleven sovereign nation-states1. However, prior to
becoming independent territories or states in the 20th century, most of the mainland and maritime
areas of this region were colonies to European countries. European influence in this region can be
traced back to the 16th century when the Portuguese colonized parts of Malaysia and the Philippines.
Between the 17th and 18th centuries, parts of Malaysia and Indonesia were Dutch and British colo-
nies whilst parts of Indochina were French colonies. By the 19th century, the entire SEA region,
with the exception of Thailand, had been colonized by Europeans. Around the mid-20th century,
nationalistic sentiments in the region made Vietnam and Indonesia independent of French and
Dutch rule respectively in 1945, Cambodia from the French in 1953, followed by the Federation of
Malaya (now Malaysia) from the British in 1957. To foster regional collaboration, these newly
independent countries came together in 1967 to form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) with the aim of promoting inter-governmental cooperation and socio-economic devel-
opment. Today, ASEAN’s membership comprises all SEA countries except East Timor.
(EHEA). Similarly, the idea of ‘Europe’ as conceived by Novoa and Lawn (2002) is about a
European educational space formed by transnational governance, networks, cultural and educa-
tional projects. Does this notion of ‘Europe’ influence SEA’s construction of its formal and infor-
mal rules, procedures, policies, and norms in forming its common space of higher education? Is
there ‘Europeanization’4, understood as Europe’s way of doing things, at work in SEA’s higher
education?
Discourses of higher education in SEA acknowledge aspects of TNHE (McBurnie and Ziguras,
2001; Ziguras, 2003) and internationalization of higher education (Huang, 2007; Knight, 2008a;
Tham and Kam, 2008). The ‘transnational-ness’ of cross-border collaborative programmes is
inferred through the flow of people, knowledge, ideas, policies, and projects across national and/or
regional jurisdictional borders. Gough’s (2004) work on transnational curriculum inquiry suggests
there is a shift from the national to the transnational, and for this reason he stresses the need to
understand TNHE curricula beyond its contents, objectives, and outcomes. Some researchers argue
that the flows and exchanges in TNHE allow mixing of ‘inter-national’ and ‘inter-cultural’ dimen-
sions into curriculum and teaching–learning processes which make them ‘internationalized forms’
of higher education (Knight, 2008a, 2012; Tham and Kam, 2008). Beginning in the mid-2010s,
new forms of TNHE like joint and dual/double degree5 programmes between local and foreign
HEIs have emerged in SEA. Knight (2008b:. 3) argues these joint degrees have been instrumental
in developing the EHEA and improving the competitiveness of European higher education around
the world. She suggests it is important to acknowledge Europe’s leadership in developing and pro-
moting such collaborative programmes.
However, questions persist around the meanings of these terms with continuing controversies
about the legitimacy of dual/double awards conferred through such programmes of study. Some
scholars regard TNHE programmes, like twinning, joint, and dual/double degrees, as part of the
internationalization process of higher education (Huang, 2007; Knight, 2008b, 2016; Tham and
Kam, 2008). But Knight (2008b: 22; 2016: 40, 41) highlights how the ‘joint curriculum model’ in
collaborative programmes brings together teaching–learning processes that produce novel forms of
knowledge production between people in different countries.
So, which terminology best captures SEA higher education based on collaborative programmes
between local and foreign HEIs? Is the SEA higher education space national, international, or
transnational? To answer these questions, this paper reports research that investigated the cultural
character of dual/double degree programmes in Malaysia. Tracing how curriculum is made between
Malaysian and British HEIs reveals the trajectories that are remaking higher education in SEA.
other questions, for example: How is its curriculum made? Who makes it? And, is it national, inter-
national or something else?
This perspective sees curriculum as a social construct that embodies its society’s prevailing
beliefs, attitudes, and standards (Franklin, 1999; Pinar et al., 1995; Seddon, 1989). A curriculum is
not just a thing in the here and now but is inflected by cultural, social, political, and historical
dimensions of education and societies, which are now globalizing (Green, 2003; Pinar, 2004). This
notion of curriculum has been associated with the idea of an ‘autobiographical text’ (Pinar and
Grumet, 1976), that involves the ongoing process of meaning making, with constant recovery and
reformulation of one’s embodied history (Davis and Sumara, 2010). Grumet’s (1981: 115) charac-
terization of curriculum as ‘collective stories’ by one generation to another also dematerializes the
notion of ‘curriculum-as-object’ and rematerializes it to reveal ‘curriculum-as-text’. Other scholars
present ‘curriculum-as-text’ as representations of social realities that rest on complex interconnec-
tions and interactions between people and social practices (Da Silva, 1999: 18; Kemmis, 1993: 35).
With this understanding of curriculum making, I ask two questions about the ‘curriculum-as-
text’ that materializes dual degrees and the SEA higher education space. First, ‘what is the dual
degree curriculum that is made by Malaysian and British institutions and delivered in Malaysia?’
This question focuses attention on the way cultural and historical experiences of different societies
and peoples become embodied through the process of curriculum making. The second question
asks ‘how does the Malaysian–British dual degree curriculum materialize an international, national,
or transnational space of higher education?’ It considers how practices of governing unfold through
the lived contexts of curriculum writers and with what effects these have on the indigenous/
Malaysian and Anglophone/British knowledge practices.
de-nationalizing processes depends on their local histories and cultural dispositions (Kress, 1996;
Rizvi, 2007). Nationalizing and internationalizing pressures that work in opposition also disturb
national and international boundaries and habits of mind. These processes blur historical, political,
and social dimensions of states and societies, driving processes that de- and re-nationalize territo-
ries (Sassen, 2003, 2005), and rescale education spaces (Robertson et al., 2002). These socio-spatial
reconfigurations happen through the interplay between processes of political and sociological
boundary work and actors that are differently positioned in this space (Seddon, 2014).
The nature and effects of these regionalized higher education spaces emerge alongside growing
economic, social, and political linkages. Travelling ideas and policies, and flows of peoples, images
and goods, shift the boundaries and possibilities of cross-border connections and dialogue between
people, places, and institutions across and between nation-states, reconstituting regions in ways
that materialize an ‘emergent transnationalism’ (Vertovec, 2009: 3). ‘Transnationalism’, as con-
cept, refers to the multiple relationships and interactions linking people and/or institutions across
the borders of nation-states, and the conditions (i.e. social spaces) that emerge, despite ‘great dis-
tances’ and the presence of ‘barriers’ (like forms of laws and regulations), as these interactions
develop, intensify, and spread across geographic, cultural, and political borders (Vertovec, 2009:
25, 27; Yeoh et al., 2003: 208). Rizvi (2011) explains that transnationalism requires new ways of
examining issues of culture and diversity because of the way they are now experienced through
‘de-territorialized’ spaces which are shaped by novel contradictions, dilemmas, and risks imposed
by multiple networked affiliations.
These anthropological understandings of social space suggest a new paradigm for understand-
ing curriculum making and its effects that remake higher education spaces. Instead of seeing cur-
riculum making framed with reference to the binary opposites of ‘local/national’ or ‘global/
international’, it is possible to analyse the curriculum of dual degree programmes through a ‘trans-
national’ bifocal optic that views the nation-state and transnational practices as ‘mutually constitu-
tive’ (Smith, 2001: 3–4). These notions of social space and the overlaps or ‘borderlands’ between
the supra-national/international, national/local, and sub-national/institutional levels, together with
ideas of regionalism and transnationalism, highlight the importance of ‘intersectionalities’ in the
making of Malaysian–British dual degrees.
The research design probed these intersectionalities in dual degree curriculum making through
interviews with curriculum writers in Malaysian private HEIs. The interviews targeted intersection-
alities (see Figure 1) to understand how Malaysia’s higher education space is defined not only by its
geopolitical coordinates but is also shaped by the interplay of rules and practices at the national (e.g.
government agencies), sub-national (e.g. educational institutions), and supra-national (e.g. transna-
tional agencies) scale. For example, the Malaysian government has established national agencies
like the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) to accredit local qualifications and benchmark
them with foreign quality frameworks like UK’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in preparation
for regionalization and internationalization of its higher education space (Sarjit et al., 2008).
Figure 1. Dual degree curriculum space as an ‘intersectionality’ of multiple spaces of education.
on the dual degree curriculum making process, how discussions and conflicts about content and
organization of curriculum are made and resolved, and the significance of these curriculum deci-
sions for their institution and Malaysia’s higher education system. These two curriculum writers
were selected because of their different personal, educational, and professional backgrounds. The
in-depth interviews allowed them to explain their experiences in the dual degree curriculum mak-
ing process. Their narratives were analysed to surface how they comprehended these curriculum
making situations and struggles (Bryman, 2012: 213, 471; Cohen et al., 2007: 352–353). The find-
ings revealed what curriculum making in a dual degree programme means to them in terms of
relationships, institutional priorities, and territorial settings.
Australian twinning programme in Malaysia and became a lecturer at a private college. After com-
pleting his doctoral qualification with an Australian university, he joined a newly established
Malaysian private university that delivered dual degrees in Business with a British partner univer-
sity. Fred was involved in writing the Accounting and Marketing courses for the dual degree in
Marketing between his institution and its British partner.
Although both Molly and Fred are Malaysians, they carry Western or Anglophone resources;
Molly from her school education through to her doctoral work, and Fred through his professional
accounting studies and postgraduate education. Both encounter the borders between Malaysian and
Western habits as they cope with what ‘local/national’ and ‘foreign/international’ mean to them.
‘Western’ is not an empirical given but a form of representation at work – for Molly and Fred, it
can be the creation of a particular form of Eastern or Malaysian–Chinese way of knowing7. Aspects
of Molly’s and Fred’s biographies are important in this paper on a Malaysian–British dual degree
curriculum because curriculum making is a kind of autobiographical text and draws on the educa-
tional experiences of individuals (Pinar and Grumet, 1976). Molly and Fred have both had to
negotiate, experience, and understand the knowledge building processes they encounter through
working with their British counterparts. These encounters affect the making of Malaysian–British
dual degree programmes.
“Following this proviso, the UCs feared that if they introduced their own degrees would there be any
takers? There was this concern about the faith in local degrees with regards recognition by foreign
universities and potential employers.”
According to Molly, this lack of confidence in demand for local ‘home-grown’ degrees prompted
her institution to explore the possibility of offering joint or dual degree programmes with Western
universities. She recalled her institution’s Board making clear its ambition of working with Western
universities that are ‘top-ranked’ in international ratings and a preference for British and American
universities because all the Board members had received their tertiary qualifications from
Anglophone universities. Fred also described how the senior management of his newly formed
private university wanted a Western university to validate its home-grown degrees. He agreed there
was a local bias towards ‘things-of-the-West’. As he said, “the Malaysian mind-set is that you
always want something Western to back you up, and I guess that’s what the Malaysian market
wants as well.” Fred also confessed his own bias: “I think my first language is English, and in a
sense my thinking is English.” To both curriculum writers, there is a pro-Western, or more specifi-
cally a pro-British, sentiment prevailing in Malaysia. Molly offered an analogy:
800 European Educational Research Journal 17(6)
“There is this fear that local Malaysian education, just like Malaysian products, will not sell. And, Philips
light bulbs made in England are better than those made in Malaysia! Somehow in this part of the world,
the premium is still on British universities for undergraduate studies.”
“Most of our lecturers would be using text from the West as they have been educated in America, Britain
or Europe, and Australia. There is the tendency for us to use British material because whatever we have
learnt we tend to use in our teaching. And also because the textbooks available at the present time are
mainly from the West or British … There is little research done by local academics, so there is no alternative
but to adopt the Western texts and approaches.”
Molly believed that Malaysia’s colonial past played an important part in the ‘closeness’ between
her Malaysian institution and the British partner. Her institution’s search for a Western university
partner to build dual degrees included reaching out to American, British, and Australian universi-
ties. However, she understood that her institution’s decision to work with the British university was
because “we were able to connect and there was good fit in what we wanted to do.” To Molly, both
HEIs shared compatible goals in that her Malaysian institution preferred a British university to
validate its home-grown curriculum whilst the British partner wanted its international outreach to
extend to SEA.
The dual degree in Fred’s institution is also based on curriculum validation by a British univer-
sity. According to Fred:
“The dual degree model we are referring to for my university and ‘British University’9 is one where a
student undergoes one course of study and at the end of the day will get two parchments or certificates …
Although ‘British University’ has a degree by the same name, the curriculum is not identical (to ours).
There are differences in academic calendars as we have three semesters versus their two terms a year, and
so on. It is basically our programme and it’s validated by our British partner.”
Fred’s institution has had a long-standing relationship with its British partner. For more than two
decades, Fred’s Malaysian institution had been offering the British partner’s undergraduate curricu-
lum via a twinning arrangement. The British institution’s curriculum is delivered locally by Fred’s
Malaysian institution and students who complete the twinning programme receive the British insti-
tution’s award. When the Malaysian institution was upgraded to private university status, it was
‘natural’ for the two institutions to continue running collaborative programmes together. However,
the British institution’s role now is to validate the home-grown curriculum developed by its
Malaysian partner. The liberalization and privatization of Malaysia’s higher education space have
caused the roles played by Malaysian private HEIs and their foreign partner institutions to change.
Molly described this new form of collaboration between local and British HEIs as internationaliza-
tion of higher education in Malaysia, although that was not the case with her institution:
“There really wasn’t any idea of internationalization at that time … When you look at it, you would think
that that is internationalization but there was no idea of internationalization. It was just growing out of
necessity.”
Cheng 801
“The ultimate decision will come from us because we are the ones mounting the degree and we are the ones
who understand the market here in terms of demand for the degree. We are also the ones who need to get
the approval from the MQA10, and so, we ultimately have the final say … The dual degree curriculum is
basically designed by us. It is initiated and designed by the local faculty. It could be in consultation with
the professional bodies if it’s a professionally recognized degree, and in some cases in consultation with
the local industry.”
Both curriculum writers also view MQA rules as a means of putting ‘national-ness’ into private
HEIs’ home-grown curricula and ‘harmonizing’ private HEIs’ curricula with that of public HEIs.
Molly’s ‘matter-of-fact’ view was that:
“National priorities would come in the way of aligning with the quality agency in the Ministry of Education
(MOE). In other words, whatever we do in terms of curriculum development, the major factor to consider
is the MOE and in particular the MQA because without their approval no collaborative programme can
be on the market. So, we put in 120 credits and General Studies so that our curriculum harmonizes with
public universities.”
The Malaysian–British dual degree programmes award students with certificates from both
Malaysian and British HEIs. This means the dual degree curricula must fulfil the requirements of
both Malaysia’s MQA and UK’s QAA. Molly shared how she and her colleagues had to look at the
UK curriculum standards and verify every step of the way as they developed the curriculum with
their British counterparts:
“We would video conference about the contents of the curriculum, where topics can be improved and
where they were happy or not with resources. We even needed to change the naming of the qualification …
‘British University’ also made some changes to the topics and the reading lists because there was
insufficient academic theory. And so, we modified them to include more theory to suit ‘British University’s’
requirements.”
Although Molly and Fred acknowledged the dual degree curriculum had to meet UK QAA’s
requirements, they were “stressed-out” by the “difficult tasks” of bridging differences between
MQA’s and QAA’s quality assurance processes and requirements. Both cited gaps and different
practices in terms of academic credits, weighting of different assessment methods, and variations
in external moderation processes. To Molly, the area of biggest concern for Malaysian–British dual
degrees was the difference in academic load or credits:
“The MQA says all undergraduate programmes must have 120 credits, but for UK institutions an
undergraduate degree has 90 to 100 credits. One British credit is equivalent to 10 hours of interaction and
learning time but one Malaysian credit equals 40 hours of interaction and learning time. (As) you know,
in the Malaysian or Asian context, there is a tendency to say ‘more is better’ and ‘the more subjects the
better’. So, we introduce additional subjects to make up another 20 credits or so in order to meet MQA
802 European Educational Research Journal 17(6)
requirements. Now, what happens when students pass the subjects validated by the collaborative partner
but fail the additional MQA ones? Do we give the students their degrees or not? It is a real dilemma … It’s
like you have ‘one country, two systems’!”
Fred echoed similar frustrations and added that the challenges he faced were not just the differ-
ences between MQA’s and QAA’s quality assurance frameworks but also differences in how
Malaysian and British HEIs operate:
“The dual degree has to follow our academic regulations and academic structure (but) another difference
is in the way we deliver the programme which is by semester whereas ‘British University’ delivers it over
terms. We have three semesters and they have two terms in a year. It’s quite complex.”
Fred suggested the differences and gaps between his Malaysian institution and British partner
could be reduced if his British counterparts understood situations in Malaysia better. Somewhat
frustrated, he complained, “They have to understand the local market. And the challenge in under-
standing is either because they don’t want to understand or because they are not exposed to our
situations.” Molly also saw the gaps between her Malaysian and British HEIs in terms of what the
former can do in curriculum making and what is expected by the latter. However, she was prag-
matic about these gaps:
“We know the gaps between ‘British University’ and our institution. We are realistic and pragmatic about
it. It is fortunate for curriculum development that we have a partner like ‘British University’ which requires
certain standards and we all have to meet those standards.”
“Some of the work, especially at the early stages, was very tumultuous and very turbulent. It was like
David dealing with Goliath. Over here, we’re all the ‘David’, you know. The Goliath is with the management
school at ‘British University’. Probably, not many people there have ever heard of this ‘little David’ in
Southeast Asia. So, sometimes there are different levels of understanding and sometimes because they
don’t want to know … It was really very condescending initially. There are bad days when I get very nasty
emails. It was very much a master-servant type of relationship. But over the years, things sort of get better,
or at least people are trying to make it better. It’s like a marriage, you know, and there are ups and downs
but overall you stick to it. That’s my experience.”
Molly also recalled situations where the academics at her Malaysian and British HEIs did not see
‘eye-to-eye’. In Molly’s experience, Malaysian academics tend to ‘over-teach’ and ‘spoon-feed’
students which is contrary to the British partner’s preference for students to be more independent,
Cheng 803
inquisitive, and resourceful. There were instances when her local academic colleagues were criti-
cized for too much ‘chalk-and-talk’ and ‘rolling out facts’ to students and for not doing enough in
questioning and interacting with students. Molly referenced these disagreements to differences
between the Eastern and Western cultures of learning and upbringing as she stressed that the maxim
“East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” is changing with technology and
internationalization of education:
“It’s the way (our) young ones are brought up and that’s why the kids from the West are more inquisitive
than ours in the Asian context. In the Asian context, it is always about studying, don’t ask questions, and
your elders know best. But in the West, they go to the other end of questioning everything. So, it’s really
about changing how we think.”
The curriculum making work between curriculum writers at both Malaysian and British HEIs is
tensioned by such differences in cultures and expectations and this can have impact on what
becomes their dual degree.
expectations, and traditions), and how they produce particular conflicts and struggles that require
new ways of examining and understanding them.
These gaps and conflicts in the ‘de-nationalized’ dual degree curriculum space in that they are
not solely Western (i.e. European) or Eastern (i.e. Asian) are ‘new’. Instead, the curriculum writers
recognize and work through the blurring boundaries between what is ‘Malaysian/national’ and
what is ‘British/international’ in this so called ‘local’, in-country, space of higher education. The
fact that conflicts and dilemmas can occur in this Malaysian–British curriculum space where dif-
ferent cultures, traditions, and expectations are at play is not new. Rizvi (2011), in his discourse on
‘emergent transnationalism’, had similarly described the intersectionality between different cul-
tures as a ‘de-territorialized’ and ‘transnational’ space and explained the contradictions and dilem-
mas experienced in it as due to the cultural diversity and networked affiliations of that space.
Acknowledgements
The data used in this paper were collected as part of the author’s PhD research project. The author wishes to
thank the participants for their responses and supervisors for their inputs.
Cheng 805
Funding
The study received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit
sectors.
Notes
1. The eleven countries making up Southeast Asia are Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
2. Professional studies included accounting and secretarial certification by British bodies like the City
and Guilds, London Chamber of Commerce and Industries, and Association of Chartered and Certified
Accountants, and technical qualifications by the Engineering Council of UK.
3. Although there are differences in the meanings of the terms cross-border, transnational, and offshore, in
practice, they are used interchangeably; transnational education has gained meaning and popular use as
the terminology for movement of academic programmes and providers between countries (Huang, 2007:
424; Knight, 2016: 36).
4. Europeanization is understood as a process of construction, diffusion, and institutionalization of formal
and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, shared beliefs, and norms, or simply ‘ways of
doing things’ (Featherstone and Radaelli, 2003: 30).
5. The joint degree programme awards only one certificate or qualification with the names of the local and
foreign institutions on the same certificate whilst the dual/double degree programme awards two sepa-
rate certificates/qualifications, that is, one from each partner institution (Knight, 2016: 44).
6. European Union support to higher education in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region (see
http://www.share-asean.eu/).
7. Following Edward Said’s book Orientalism (1978) as one of the first to demonstrate some of the poten-
tial differences that the notion of representation came to have in cultural analyses.
8. These higher education reforms were the result of government’s implementation of the Private Higher
Education and Institutions Act 1996 which is often cited as the watershed policy that brought about the
liberalization of higher education in Malaysia (Lee, 1999; Tan, 2002).
9. For anonymity, the British universities partnering with Malaysian Higher Education Institutions in the
dual degree programmes are not named in this paper; ‘British University’ is used when referring to the
actual names of the universities in the narratives.
10. MQA is an acronym for Malaysian Qualifications Agency, which is Malaysia’s national accreditation
board for academic and professional qualifications from certificate to postgraduate degree levels; the
MQA comes under the auspices of the Malaysian Ministry of Education.
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Author biography
Mien Cheng is pursuing PhD studies at the Faculty of Education in Monash University, Australia. Her research
interests are in transnational education reforms, education in Southeast Asia, and curriculum inquiry.