Revisiting the Asian regulatory regimes in transnational education: how local politics (re)oriented higher education policy in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Literature suggests that state–market relations in Asian transnational education appear as a hybrid of economic socialism and economic liberalism as well as of supra-territoriality and sovereignty. Such a notion of hybrid focuses on how Asian states manage the struggles over the meaning and value of higher education, thereby addressing various ways in which states participate in neoliberal globalisation. This paper argues that Asian states’ higher education policy choices are restricted by local politics and the resulting policy agendas. This argument explains the paradoxical situation that Malaysia continuously encounters when developing its regulatory regime to govern transnational education. The argument also illuminates the recalibrations that appeared in the transnational education policies of Singapore and Hong Kong. The paradox and recalibrations reveal how a political perspective on transnational education is important to understand Asian states’ responses to globalisation in higher education regardless of the nature of their regulatory regimes.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational higher education
• regulatory regimes
• globalisation
• local politics
• education hub

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Bumiputera, which literally means ‘sons of the soil’, includes Malay and other indigenous groups.

2 This section is adapted from Lo (2018).

3 Students in Malaysian universities have been allowed to participate in politics outside the campus since amendment made to the Universities and University Colleges Act in 2012 and Private Higher Education Institutions Act in 2014. The restriction of partisan politics in campus has also been lifted in through further amendments to the above two laws in 2018.