Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

The international dimension of Higher Education is a topic of intense interest and debate in the first decade of the 21st century. Higher Education institutions cannot be isolated from the rest of the world. Increasingly the universities are getting very mobile and constantly diverging to various areas beyond their national and regional borders. Higher Education is fast becoming internationalised and it is no exception in Singapore and Malaysia, especially because both Singapore and Malaysia aim to be the centre of educational excellence in the region. This study aims to contribute to the current understanding of strategies for internationalisation and addressing the gap in the current knowledge by highlighting the contextual influences affecting the impact of the globalisation and internationalisation of public Higher Education in Singapore and Malaysia. The underlying assumption of this research is that there are some similarities and differences between the strategies for internationalisation in Higher Education institutions in Singapore and Malaysia and that these patterns could be due to similar or dissimilar global influences, local and national influences as well as institutional contexts. In spite of facing similar forces of change for the Higher Education systems in Singapore and Malaysia, responses from the universities are not entirely similar because of the unique national policies, socio-cultural, economic development, as well as the institution’s backgrounds.