Universities all around Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia are implementing English-taught curriculum to help local students become more employable. In accordance with a recent study by Studyportals and the British Council, 1,188 English-taught programmes are offered by 25 higher education institutions in the three nations.
According to Studyportals, the increase of programmes offering English instruction has “major consequences for international student mobility.”As per, Edwin van Rest, CEO and co-founder of Studyportals, “it implies that potential students have access to more programmes in a larger range of destinations than ever before.”
A 2021 worldwide iteration of the survey discovered that 7 institutions in Singapore were providing 272 courses, while 15 institutions in Malaysia were offering 848 programmes.
“We were both thrilled and shocked to see the 77% growth [in English-taught programmes outside of Australia, NZ, the UK, the US, and Canada] in the worldwide report. But it appears that growth is now accelerating,” Megan Agnew, manager of IELTS Global Partnerships, said at the Going Global APAC conference of the British Council in Singapore.”It appears that English-taught programmes are doing something that perhaps no other aspect of global higher education is.”
Universities adjusting to teaching in English “will make global talent corridors more distributed and symmetrical,” according to Studyportals, even though the precise expansion in programmes could be caused by both the Studyportals listings becoming more thorough and the addition of more courses.
While accounting for 18% and 16%, respectively, of available programmes, business and management and engineering and technology, van Rest remarked that other disciplines “are more prevalent.”
According to him, “over the past few years, the region has become a more significant hub for higher education; we see this reflected not only in the increase of programme listings, but also in the increase of student interest for bachelor’s and master’s programmes across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.”