BEIJING: Education groups from China are eyeing Malaysia as a potential destination to set up international schools, said Deputy Education Minister Chong Sin Woon.
Chong, who is also MCA Youth chief, said Chinese investors had expressed their intention to build such schools to cater to students from China, who are increasingly interested in pursuing secondary school education overseas.
“Malaysia is appealing because we have a multilingual environment, which is conducive for learning both English and Chinese.
“Students can apply to enter universities in either Malaysia or western countries after completing their secondary education,” he said during a meeting with All-Chinese Youth Federation vice-chairman Zhou Changkui here.
Talking to reporters later, Chong said Malaysia had to ride on this trend to attract more Chinese students to come here and develop Malaysia as a regional education hub.
Chong is leading a 24-member delegation, including 17 MCA Youth members and seven entrepreneurs, to Beijing for a three-day visit.
Besides strengthening ties with MCA Youth’s counterparts in China, Chong said he was hoping to initiate programmes to boost exchanges between youths from both countries.
The visit is also aimed at discovering opportunities created by China’s Belt and Road initiatives for young entrepreneurs in Malaysia.
Chong said one of the areas that could be explored was agriculture so that farmers in Malaysia to learn technology and skills from China to boost production.
“We registered a Malaysian Youth Farmers Cooperative in February to encourage people below 50 to join the agricultural field.
“We have been exporting a container of watermelon to Hong Kong every week since the end of September and we are targeting to penetrate the Chinese market as well, but that would depend on the policies between two governments,” he added.
Chong said there were also proposals from China to establish a Confucius Institute in Malaysia, which would be instrumental in introducing the essence of the Chinese culture and language to Malaysians, especially non-Chinese citizens.
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