KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 — The rise in foreign intake is an indication of Malaysia’s value as an education destination but not necessarily its quality as claimed by a federal minister, said local academics.

According to Prof Datuk Dr Shamsul Amri Baharuddin of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), measuring the quality of education in Malaysia or any other country could not be done using such a superficial metric.

“The number of foreign students alone is insufficient to prove how good our universities are because quite simply we offer comparatively the lowest fees per student (courses and immigration) compared to what Australia and UK charges, and they charge very high fees.

“Only the really rich can study in UK and Australia, not necessarily the brightest. So, the quality of foreign Malaysian students could be better than those who study in UK and Australia,” the Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA) founding director told Malay Mail Online.

Prof Dr Mansor Mohd Noor, also from UKM and KITA, said that while he did not dispute Malaysia’s growing popularity with foreign students, this did not reveal the shortcomings with the local education system.

He added that refusing to address the problems inherent in local education will only hamper efforts to resolve them.

Mansor also dismissed Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh’s use of Universiti Malaya’s 151^st place on the  2014 QS World University Ranking to approximate the quality of local institutions, saying that Malaysian universities were “nowhere closer” to the iconic Cambridge or Oxford universities.

“Politicians want to show success story. We never dare to declare, we always try to tell the world we are good in this and good in that,” he said.

“We have to admit that certain aspects in governance and education need to [be improved].”

Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia president Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said that most foreign students here are from other developing countries and only a handful were from developed countries.

Those from developed nations are also only here on exchange programmes, she added.

“They are not literally leaving (their country) to come and study in our country,” she told Malay Mail Online.

Idris was quoted as saying by national news agency Bernama on Saturday that Malaysia’s institutions of higher education are on par with those in the UK, Germany and Australia as there are 135,000 foreigners making 10 per cent of all students in local universities and colleges.

The minister also cited Universiti Malaya’s rise in the 2014 QS World University Rankings, from 167 to 151, as further evidence.