PENANG, 30 March 2015 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) aims to increase its international students intake to 5,000 by 2020, in line with the University’s internationalisation efforts.

The target is among those detailed on the USM internationalisation policy for the next five years, along with other selected programmes to be implemented intensively involving the university community.

USM Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman said, six key focuses have been set to ensure a smooth execution of all the plans which includes looking at ways and means of increasing the intake of international students and internationalising the local students.

He said, a number of action plans have been identified, including doubling the efforts to extend academic collaborations and off-shore programmes which could contribute towards achieving the target set.

“The existence of off-shore and academic collaborative programmes for new as well as current programmes would provide opportunities for USM to realise the set targeted intake of 5,000 students.”

“At the same time, USM too would be able to increase the number of its international academic staff members via off-shore management practices in offering programmes at the global level,” he said.

He said this in an interview before delivering his keynote speech on USM Internationalisation Policy at the Internationalisation of USM workshop, attended by the university management officials and heads of department at the Dewan Persidangan Universiti here today.

He added, the internationalisation policy also looks at the need for increased collaborations with strategic global partners in the academic field, which include the offering of twinning and off-shore programmes.

Omar said, USM also needs to look at new approaches that can attract international students, including finding a new and more strategic location to build a world-class campus in the future.

Apart from that, USM has also detailed steps to strengthen collaborative practices including joint studies with well-renowned international universities and research institutes.

“Such collaborations can be done through the production of suitable publications and looking at how networking can benefit joint commercialisation or knowledge transfer endeavours.

“We would also look at how USM can internationalise its community to ensure the university can move ahead and be prominent in the global arena," he said.

He believes internationalisation can promote healthy competition for the development of higher education institutions in a borderless world. 

“However, we should not only be talking about local competition, but must take into account the global competition as well, as can be seen from the foreign higher education institutions who are quick to make changes and adapt to the ever-changing educational scenarios worldwide,” said Omar.

Omar added, the exercise towards raising the marketability of graduates at the international level would also be among the agenda to be detailed and implemented. - Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin/Text: Marziana Mohamed Alias & Siti Naquiah binti Abdillah/Photos: Mohd Fairus Md. Isa