Academics as Agents of Internationalization and Literacy: Malaysian Responses and Future Challenges

Abstract

This chapter explicates the history and context of internationalization of higher education in Malaysia Malaysia and presents the challenges and benefits of internationalization to the country, in relation to academic, economic, and socio-cultural areas. It examines the continuities and the gaps between on one hand the purposes and rhetoric of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education’s (2007a, b) Strategic and Action Plans; and on the other hand, the perceptions and capacities of academics, as reported in the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) study and in the national research report on language proficiency of academic staff in public universities. Since academics are agents who occupy a central position in the knowledge production process in the new knowledge economies, this chapter investigates the orientations of academic staff in terms of their contexts, backgrounds, expertise, requirements, work roles and literacies in relation to the increasing relevance of internationalization and to their roles as reflexive agents of internationalization.