The fundamental purpose of this thesis is to examine why and how South Korea and Malaysia, two new destination countries for international students, have found themselves with such different global positioning in their networks despite the fact that t...
The fundamental purpose of this thesis is to examine why and how South Korea and Malaysia, two new destination countries for international students, have found themselves with such different global positioning in their networks despite the fact that they began attracting students in the same context.
Both South Korea and Malaysia were among the top ten largest sender countries of international students throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, as they began to attract international students in the 2000s, both nations managed to obtain a significant amount of the student exchange market and is difficult to view South Korea and Malaysia primarily in the context of a sender nation. Although South Korea and Malaysia have similar backgrounds in attracting international students, during the process of attracting students both nations obtained different results which lead them to stand in differing geopolitical positions.
Malaysia was able to develop a comparative advantage while attracting diverse students. Specifically, Malaysia became a viable alternative to students from Africa and Middle East, who had become largely isolated after the 9-11 terrorist attacks from traditional destination countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and other Anglophone and Euro-Atlantic nations. Malaysia provided an alternative channel to obtain degrees from Anglophone country universities. As a result, Malaysia filled a structural hole between the Muslim world and Western nations by occupying a niche in the global system with a so-called “transit hub” model.
South Korea, on the other hand, placed itself at the center of international student exchange and tried to develop a pro-Korean constituency; pursuing a centralized hub model rather than a brokered “transit hub” like Malaysia.
South Korea and Malaysia both joined the World Trade Organization in the 1990s and were thereby required to adhere to the structural pressure from three central agreements on liberalization of trade in the higher education sector. Consequently, universities in both countries relied on international student programs to compete in the global market. This was exacerbated by increased structural pressure with the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. However, the structural pressure to adhere to global standards form both of these incidents acted equally on both South Korea and Malaysia. Therefore, it would be difficult to conclude that this structural pressure was the main factor that resulted in both nations obtaining differing positions in the global system.
It would also be difficult to assume that this difference in geopolitical position is due to a varying application of the soft power-like strategies practiced by many traditional destination countries during the 20th century. Although South Korea does display a cognizance of the benefit of implementing these strategies and oft mentions them in political texts, Malaysia is also very concerned about its external image in reference to its brand as an educational provider on the national level. While the nuance of these rationalities are not the same, the real results that come from them are. Both nations consequently pursue the same policy goals of infrastructure development and ensuring the qualitative experience international studies for the purpose of creating positive impressions. Because there does not appear to be a significant difference the implementation of these acts, it would be difficult to conclude that a soft power-like strategy variance would have resulted in the geopolitical divergence of the cases of South Korea and Malaysia.
Yet, looked at through a network theory lens and examined through network analysis and network governance analysis, the central cause of the variance in the geopolitical positioning of South Korea and Malaysia through international student policy comes to light. The state model of each nation appears to have determined the network development and governance within the international student sector. Both nations have significantly different networks for higher education exchange in terms of structure, make-up, and governance. South Korea’s network governance comes in the form of Lead Organization Governance, with network level interaction and decision making highly influenced, if not determined, by actors within the government – resulting in government control of the participation of private, non-profit, and educational actors within the network.
Malaysia’s network governance takes on a somewhat centralized form of Participant Governance, in which leading government sector actors cooperate with and encourage interactions between private, non-profit, and educational actors and enables them to pursue these interactions within the pursuit of their own interests. Consequently, foreign branch campuses and dual-registration programs like Twinning, which require innovative cooperation between companies and educational institution, were able to develop in Malaysia but not in South Korea. As a result, Malaysia was able to take on a unique, niche role and provide itself with a valuable geopolitical position in higher education by filling a structural hole, while South Korea was unable to demonstrate such progress.