KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 139,341 international students from over 160 countries chose to pursue their studies at Malaysian Higher Education Institutions (IPT) as of March 31, 2025.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir said the success was driven by a high-quality education ecosystem, affordable cost of living, guaranteed national security levels and the offering of globally recognised academic programmes.
"This increase not only enriches the learning atmosphere with various cultural elements, but also creates an environment for the exchange of ideas and experiences that is capable of shaping globally-minded human capital," he said when replying a question by Datuk Seri Prof Emeritus Dr Awang Sariyan in the Dewan Negara on Tuesday (Sept 2).
He said the growth was also supported by strong diplomatic relations, mutual recognition of academic qualifications, strengths in high-impact fields of study such as medicine, engineering, information technology and business management.
In addition, Zambry said Malaysia continued to strengthen its status as an international higher education hub when the University of Malaya (UM) rose to 58th position in the QS World University Rankings 2026 compared to 60th position the previous year.
Zambry said Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) rose to 126th position compared to 138th, while Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) shared 134th position, up from 148th and 146th respectively, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) jumped to 153rd position compared to 181st.
For the private sector, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) is now in 251st position, Taylor’s University is in 253rd position, UCSI University is in 269th position, while Sunway University has managed to break into the world’s top 500 at 410th position after jumping more than 120 places compared to the previous year.
From a global ranking and recognition perspective, Zambry said consistent improvements can be seen in academic reputation, research quality, international visibility and graduate employability, with several of the country's public universities also being listed in the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2024 in the top 100 in Asia.
"Synergies between local academics and international partners continue to be strengthened through various collaborative platforms such as academic mobility programmes for the exchange of lecturers and researchers.
"More than 1,200 research projects with renowned universities in the UK, Australia, Japan, the Middle East and Asean, as well as the publication of highly indexed articles which now account for more than 35% of all Scopus Malaysia articles resulting from international collaboration," he said. - Bernama
