Taiwan – A Learning Journey

Don’t rely on traditional banks for international remittance!

How much (as a percentage of fund) would you guess it cost to transfer RMB 1,406 from Taiwan to Malaysia using the traditional banking services? In this article I share my expensive lesson on international fund transaction using traditional banks. A staggering 27.46% of my fund of RMB 1,406 was “taxed” by the intermediary. Both the sending bank (in Taiwan) & receiving bank (in Malaysia) said that there it was not possible to find out how the intermediary levy the charges!

[show_post_categories show=”category” hyperlink=”yes”]

[show_post_categories show=”tag” hyperlink=”yes”]

Used a traditional route for international fund transfer

As my recent trip was sponsored, I was expecting reimbursement from the sponsor for the cost of my trip. To facilitate the process, the sponsoring university in China would pool our group’s reimbursements and let the organizer of the trip, Dr. Yan to do the individual distribution of the fund received.

There was just one issue for me: the organizer and all the rest of the members of our group are based in Taiwan with yours truly being the only one located in Malaysia. Nevertheless my modest claim (after deducting the RMB 500 loaned to me by Dr. Yan to alleviate my having left my wallet at home at the start of the trip!) was RMB 1,406 (about US$202). Dr. Yan’s office was resourceful enough to use one of his bank’s “transaction fee waiver” vouchers in an attempt to keep the transaction fees down for me.

How much of RMB 1,406 would I get after being transferred to Malaysia?

At Malaysia’s end, previous experience told me that MayBank (Malayan Banking Berhad) would only levy a charge of RM5 (US$1.19) for the transaction. Of course it would have made from the spread when converting the currency into Malaysian ringgit.

Whopping 27.46% transaction fees!

Based on the exchange rate of RMB 0.59 to RM 1.00, after deducting transaction fees, I was expecting to receive at least RM 750. When the fund finally arrived at my bank, I had a big shock.

From the RMB 1,406 remitted by Dr. Yan’s office, only RM 597.70 equivalent to RMB 1,019.96 arrived at my MayBank account. The meant that a whopping RMB 386.04 or 27.46% of the original RMB 1,406 remitted was deducted as the transaction fees!

No fees levied but banks make from the spread on currency conversion

Both Taiwanese and Malaysian did not levy any transaction fees

I contacted Dr. Yan’s office and his people double checked with his bank in Taiwan to confirm that the amount transferred from Taiwan was indeed RMB 1,406. This was confirmed via the transaction slip sent to me from Taiwan. There was also no fees levied by the Taiwanese bank on the RMB 1,406.

Next, I went to my bank, MayBank to get the full details of this transfer. I was told that MayBank did not levy any fees on the transaction but the transaction report indicated that only RMB 1,019.96 was received at the Malaysian end. I was told by MayBank that they only processed the amount that was received, that is RMB 1,019.96 and it has no idea on what was the transaction fees levied by the intermediary.

I conveyed MayBank’s findings to Dr. Yan’s office which in turn also confronted their bank in Taiwan. The conclusion given by the Taiwan bank was that they had remitted RMB 1,406 and the differential must be the transaction fees (including the spreads for converting from RMB to various intermediary currencies before the final conversion to RM). To make matters more confusing, the Taiwanese bank said that it had no control over how much its intermediary would charge.

Traditional remitting equals to having no idea of the transaction cost

It then became clear to me that for traditional bank remittance from overseas, the customers really are at the mercy of the intermediaries. The remittance cost is not transparent. It thus makes this a very risky and expensive choice to remit money. And both the sending and receiving banks will wash their hands off should a customer like me getting fleeced by the intermediary (27.46% is a huge amount to levy as a remittance fee).

Better to use remittance service provider that are transparent in their fees

MoneyGram

I made a check with MoneyGram’s website to see if we were to transfer an equivalent of RMB 1,406 in US dollars (i.e, US$ 202) from Taiwan to Malaysia, with receiver paying the transaction fees what kind of scenario would happen.

As shown above, if we were to use MoneyGram, I would be getting at least RM 770.49 from the RMB 1,406 or US$ 202 that were to be remitted with a fees of only US$ 15 (or RM63 or RMB105). Thus with a exchange rate of RMB 1.00 = RM 0.59, this means I would have received RMB 1,305.92. The overall remittance and conversion cost in this case would be around RMB 100.08 or just 7.12% of the amount transacted.

Western Union

A check with Western Union shows that for a similar amount in US$, the cost of transaction would be around US$10. But since Western Union also make from a spread on conversion, for US$192, at US$1 = RM3.8539, I would only get RM739.95 or equivalent of RMB 1,254.15 Thus the overall remittance and conversion costs would actually be RMB 151.85. The total remittance cost would have been 10.80% of the amount remitted.

In both MoneyGram and Western Union cases, regardless of the total cost of the transfer of fund, the costs were pretty transparent. And even with the higher spread on currency conversion, Western Union would only have an overall cost of around 10.80% of the sum to be transferred. Of course the best choice would have been MoneyGram which has an overall cost of 7.12%.

Lesson Learned

Never use traditional banks for international remittance.
Zero “transaction fees” for international remittance is a misnomer. There is a spread when currencies are converted at the sending and receiving ends. This is how banks make their money!
Intermediaries for traditional bank remittance (aside from MoneyGrams and Western Union) do take big cuts out of your total amount to be transferred overseas!
Make sure the remittance service gives you a transparent total fees before committing to any overseas remittance.

In my case, since both Dr. Yan and I have WeChat China Wallet, it would have been better that we had explored this route where virtually there would be no cost of transaction. The only problems are: Dr. Yan needs to load his WeChat China Wallet with sufficient funds and at my end, I could only spend the amount in my WeChat China Wallet in China!

The unlawful act of foreign universities teaching academic programmes in Malaysia

It is necessary for any foreign higher education institutions (especially Taiwanese universities who are the newbies to the Malaysian market) to respect the law of the land and only collaborate with approved private colleges and universities and do so within the confine of ACT 555!

Setting up your teaching centres in Malaysia without adhering to ACT 555 is like you setting up a barbecue party at someone’s backyard without the owner’s consent and without inviting the owner!

If one has been reading the Chinese press in Malaysia over the past few weeks and is, like me, very interested in higher education matters, one will not have missed two stories detailing foreign universities (from Taiwan & China) collaborating with Chinese non-governmental-organizations (NGO) in delivering academic degree programmes partially in Malaysia.

The sudden interest by Taiwanese universities to establish a foothold in Malaysia is understandable, given the excess capacities that they collectively had. In fact this author, through the grapevine has been informed to “expect more to come”.

However, the law of the land (that is the Private Higher Education Institution Act, ACT 555) will only permit a foreign university to offer its academic programme here under two circumstances:

It is an approved branch campus such as Monash University, Nottingham University, Curtin University etc. under the ACT 555; or
It is collaborating with a private higher education institution in Malaysia that is approved under ACT 555.

Thus, if you are responsible for bringing a foreign institution into Malaysia to deliver, even partially, an academic programme, and your organization or the foreign institution does not fall into either of the circumstances above, you are then committing an offence or offences under ACT 555!

Teaching in an unapproved institution is also an offence

Article 81 (1) (c) of ACT 555 states, “Where – (c) any person is working or is a teacher in a private higher educational institution which is not approved and registered under this Act;… such private higher education institution or chief executive or person shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding ten thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or to both.”

Although I have not been to law school, but my reading of ACT 555 over the last 20 odd years tells me that Article 81 (1) (c) specifically requires that anyone teaching in any academic programme, be it a diploma, bachelor degree or Master’s must make sure that the said programme is offered by a private higher education institution that is approved under this Act. Under Article 51 of ACT 555, a teaching permit is mandatory for anyone delivering a higher education class. Thus any foreign professors delivering their classes in Malaysia will violate not only Article 81(1)(c) but also Article 51.

It also implies that any foreign institution which is not approved under ACT 555 to operate in Malaysia and conducts a course of study leading to an academic award, whether to be conferred in Malaysia or not, is deemed have violated this act.

You may teach in English or Arabic ONLY with special approval!

Further, Article 41 (1) and (3) (a) place restriction on the medium of instructions where it states, “41 (1) All private higher educational institutions shall conduct its courses of study in the national language.
…(3) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the private higher educational institution may, with the approval of the Minister— (a) conduct a course of study or a substantial part of a course of study in the English language; or (b) conduct the teaching of Islamic religion in Arabic.”

Any veteran of the private higher education industry will tell you that it will be a “matter of course” for a private higher education institution to obtain the approval to conduct a course of study in English or Arabic.

Delivering academic programme in Chinese is a different kettle of fish all together. There are only five private higher education institutions among close to 500 in Malaysia that have obtained approval to offer academic programmes that are delivered in Chinese. And these are all in the area of Chinese studies which, has been argued successfully, must be delivered using the Chinese language. Thus offering programmes such as sport science, management, MBA etc. that are fully conducted in Chinese, will contravene Article 41(1) of ACT 555.

Providing your premise to unapproved institution is an offence!

Further, Article 80 which states, “Any— (a) person who, being the owner or occupier of any house, building, premise or place, has failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the same from being used as a private higher educational institution in contravention of this Act…….shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.”

Essentially, Article 80 means that any organization, NGO, persons who let their premise to be used as a private higher education institution that is not approved under ACT 555 will be deemed to have committed an offence. Thus the use of the premises of Chinese guilds and clan associations for this purpose is illegal.

There are some amendments to ACT 555 that have been passed by the upper house of the Parliament (Dewan Negara) which will further tighten the rule books. More amendments to ACT 555 can be expected in the near future.

What about the Malaysian learners?

For learners, they should be made aware by these foreign universities and their local collaborators who are not approved under ACT 555 that any qualifications earned, even though these are conferred overseas, will not received any accreditation and recognition by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency. Thus any local learners who aspire to use such academic qualifications for career advancement, or for higher level academic studies stand a chance of being disappointed. Furthermore if such academic qualifications are to be used for admission to professional bodies and for licensing purposes, the relevant bodies or agencies which often require a detailed career information will discover that the qualifications offered (which was partly delivered in Malaysia) were not awarded in accordance to ACT 555. These learners will have the option then to seek legal redress from the foreign university and its collaborator for having misinformed them! Hence foreign universities which deliver academic programme fully or partially in Malaysia without adhering to ACT 555 should also be aware of the legal risks that they are exposed to, which will extend beyond being pursued by the authorities in Malaysia!

What can foreign universities do?

It is necessary for any foreign higher education institutions (especially Taiwanese & Chinese universities who are the newbies to the Malaysian market) to respect the law of the land and only collaborate with approved private colleges and universities and do so within the confine of ACT 555!

Setting up your teaching centres in Malaysia without adhering to ACT 555 is like you setting up a barbecue party at someone’s backyard without the owner’s consent and without inviting the owner!

For those who are interested, a copy of ACT 555 (in Bahasa Malaysia) is available here with the approved amendments in 2012.

Taiwan – Malaysia university collaborations MUST be win-win!

The flow of tertiary students has been only one-way: only from Malaysia to Taiwan. Very few Taiwanese students are found in Malaysian colleges and universities. This article set out to find ways in which a more balanced and mutually beneficial framework of relationships between Taiwanese and Malaysian institutions of higher learning could be forged.

There must be ways to check the current one-way flow of students from Malaysia to Taiwan for the benefit of institutions and students of both nations. The prospect of losing another 5,000 high school graduates students each year will be bleak for the private colleges in Malaysia. The cut-throat competition is getting deadlier this year!

Commentary (Feb 26, 2017):

This is the third and final part of my series of articles based on my public lecture, “Malaysian higher education: past, present and likely future” delivered at Tunghai University, Taiwan where I was a guest of Professor Lin Hsiou-wei.

The aggressiveness and seemingly well-funded campaigns by Taiwanese universities (including high-ranking ones) to recruit Malaysian students to fill up the large gap in capacities to student had mainly only receiving good attention in Malaysia’s Chinese press with the English press giving it scanty reports. The majority of the private colleges in Malaysia still do not have strong relationships with Taiwanese universities. This could be based solely on the uninformed assumption that students must be very proficient in Chinese language in order to study at tertiary level in Taiwan. Well, many Taiwanese universities, in line with the trend in China, have been having undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes entirely delivered in English for some years now. In addition, despite the difficulties in scoring grade A+ for Chinese language at national senior high school examination in Malaysia (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia or Malaysian Certificate of Education) there are still a substantial number of students taking the subject each year. Hence there would be many high school graduates with the requisite proficiency in Chinese each year to study in Taiwan. Of course some very savvy private colleges have woken up to this Taiwanese “fear factor” lately.

I had done a bit of research on the data I obtained from various sources which showed a very disappointing trend: the flow of tertiary students has been only one-way, that is from Malaysia to Taiwan. Very few Taiwanese students are found in Malaysian colleges and universities. I then set out to find ways in which a more balanced and mutually beneficial framework of relationships between Taiwanese and Malaysian institutions of higher learning could be forged.

I presented this in my public lecture but I am not fully convinced that my message was getting through to right people in Taiwan. I do hope that somehow someone will see the imbalance and try ways to address this. I for one do not subscribe to the notion that Taiwanese universities would intentionally bring about the decimation of private higher education industry in Malaysia. Hence this seemingly zero-sum game will need to be altered, and altered fast for the long term betterment of people of both Taiwan and Malaysia.

I have been asked by some of my readers and friends to translate this article into Chinese in order to attain my aim. You never know, I might take up the challenge later!

An article entitled, “Facing brain drain, Taiwan looks to poach Malaysian students” appeared on September 15, 2013 in Malay Mail Online. It was in response to the push by Taiwan to target Malaysia for new students to fill in excess seats available in their 160 or so universities and colleges. The alarm bells were starting to ring in the recruitment offices of many Malaysian private colleges in reaction to this news.

Dr Chow Yong Neng (second from left) receiving a warm reception from Professor Lin Hsiou-wei (fourth from the eft) and his staffs at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan

Then in late May 2016 the Sun Daily reported that there are 15,000 Malaysians already studying in Taiwa n. Around the same time Sin Chew Daily in turn reported that Taiwan will target to have a total of 25,000 Malaysian students studying in Taiwan within the next two years, an increase of 5,000 on average in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

With the “drought” of students hitting the industry in 2016, the Malaysian private higher education sector is already facing a collective lowering of enrollment caused mainly by the increased in Sixth Form enrollment for 2016. The further prospect of losing another 5,000 students on average caused the alarm bells at the recruitment offices of private colleges in Malaysia to ring non-stop ever since!

One cannot begin to imagine the impact of losing another 5,000 high school students each year will do to the private higher education sector in Malaysia. Table 1 shows the number of Malaysians studying in Taiwan from 2013 to 2018 (2016 to 2018 figures were projected).

able 1: The number of Malaysians studying in Taiwan from 2013 – 2018 (Data Source: 2013 – http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201412230014.aspx and 2014 & 2015 – http://english.moe.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=16738&ctNode=11414&mp=1)

The Taipei Economic and Cultural in Malaysia kindly shared with this author the number of Taiwanese studying in Malaysia (provided by the government of Malaysia in October 2015). A total of 116 Taiwanese students were studying in Malaysia in 2015 with only 96 students being in private colleges. These figures show the severe imbalance in the movement of students between the two countries.

So what chances do small and medium sized Malaysian private colleges (and even some of the larger ones) have in competing against well funded and highly reputable Taiwanese universities and colleges which have been very liberal in awarding scholarships lately? This is made worse by the fact that the only silver lining that Malaysian private colleges had, which is the delivery of academic courses in English is also being eroded. Many Taiwanese universities and colleges with teaching staff who are trained in USA, UK or Australia are offering international academic programmes that are fully delivered in English.

Can this seemingly zero-sum game of student recruitment be reconfigured for the long term mutual benefits of the students and institutions of both countries?

This author believes that it is not the intention of Taiwan to create the “fear-factor” in Malaysian private higher education. A zero-sum game will always have a winner (Taiwan) and a loser (Malaysia). However, given the strength in the “New Go South” policy of President Tsai Ing-wen, is there any way players in higher education in both Taiwan and Malaysia can collaborate on a “1 + 1 = 4” principle?

“Collaboration outweighs competition” should always be the motto when it comes to Taiwanese-Malaysian higher education institutions’ relationship. For the “1 + 1 = 4” principle to be realised, there must be a think-out-of-the-box collaboration model between the two countries’ universities and colleges.

A "think out of the box" model of collaboration between Malaysian and Taiwanese colleges and universities will replace the one-way flow of students from Malaysia to a bidirectional flow of students between Taiwan and Malaysia to the benefit of both nations. — A “think out of the box” model of collaboration between Malaysian and Taiwanese colleges and universities will replace the one-way flow of students from Malaysia to a bidirectional flow of students between Taiwan and Malaysia to the benefit of both nations.

Something must be done by both countries to address the severe imbalance in the flow of students which at present, for all intent and purposes is unidirectional: only Malaysian students would go to Taiwan and essentially there is insignificant flow towards Malaysia.

Hence for an equitable collaboration to work, the flow of students MUST always be bi-directional. “Share and share alike” shall be the key to successful collaboration efforts between institutions of higher learning of both countries.

To make this work, Taiwanese universities and colleges must not treat their Malaysian counterparts as “feeder colleges” but as equal partners in the sharing of students. They must be prepared to send to their Malaysian partners an equivalent number of Taiwanese students to make this work.

By having (and sharing) Taiwanese and Malaysian students we can create the “1 + 1 = 4” principle. For starter, instead of recruiting Malaysian students directly to attend all 4 years of undergraduate studies in Taiwan, we can have a modified “2 + 2 model”. Malaysian students will be recruited by a Malaysian institution partnering a Taiwanese university or college. These Malaysian students will stay in Malaysia to complete the first part of their studies (either in diploma or in a homegrown degree programme) before credit transferring to the Taiwanese university. At the same time, the Taiwanese university partner will send a similar number of its students to the Malaysian counterpart. These Taiwanese university students could be studying on a “student exchange”, “study abroad” or credit transfer mode. So long as there is an equitable flow of students each year, both institutions stand to gain extra headcounts. Thus both institutions will have an additional student for everyone that it has sent to its partner institution, thereby creating two student headcounts on both sides, making the “1 + 1 = 4” principle a reality.

There are also other variations to this model aside from the example above where a bidirectional flow of students between Taiwan and Malaysia can be effectively implemented:

Setting up dual awards in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes between institutions of higher learning in both countries (students from both countries can opt to take up both or one of the academic awards).
Taiwanese universities leveraging on their Malaysian partner colleges/universities to tap into the non-Chinese speaking students market (instead of just targeting the Chinese Malaysian, Taiwanese universities, through their Malaysian partners can widen their reach). These students can be placed in the Malaysian partner institutions for preparatory courses (e.g. Chinese proficiency classes) before their stint in Taiwan, thereby sharing of such students between the two partners.
Tapping into “seniors” and “executive development” markets in both countries by co-branding of programmes and deliver part of these programmes in the partner’s institutions on “short study visits” basis for example utilizing Malaysia’s Mobility Programme.

With a deeper collaborative relationship, both the Taiwanese and Malaysian institutions can then leverage on each other’s strength, brands and reputation to tackle other non-traditional areas of collaboration. Research and development, consultancy projects, bidding for research funding and commercialization of research are some of the “offshoots” of such collaborations. Essentially the Taiwanese and Malaysian institutions can then leverage on each other to expand their “market” and effectively reach into each other’s territory to be fully transnational.

Having bidirectional flow of students will benefit Taiwanese students by giving them exposure to Malaysia in an in-depth manner which would increase the cultural and economic intertwining of both nations, directly increasing the sphere of influence of Taiwan and still adhere to the New Go South policy of President Tsai, albeit with some modifications.

All it takes now is the collective willpower of the leaders of Taiwanese universities to put this into action and to engage with their counterparts in Malaysia (mainly the private colleges and universities) to put the current zero-sum game to bed.

The ball is now in the Taiwanese court!

The bulk of the content of this article came from a talk given by the author as a guest speaker of Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan on July 28 2016 entitled “Malaysian higher education: past, present and likely future.”

How many colleges and universities can Malaysia truly sustain?

Based on the US model of population and income and compare these with the equivalents for Taiwan and Malaysia….the wisdom of Taiwan’s decision to reduce her universities by one third is apparent. It means also that Malaysia cannot sustain the high number of tertiary institutions. Wake up call?

I was invited by Professor Lin Hsiou-Wei, Distinguished Professor and Dean of Management College, Tunghai University, Taiwan to visit his university in late July 2016. Professor Lin also invited me to give a public lecture entitled, “Malaysian higher education: past, present and likely future.” This is the first of three articles that I had written and first published in Han Chiang News in 2016 based on the research I had done to prepare for that public lecture in Taiwan which I delivered in Mandarin. It was the first time I was given the opportunity to give a talk delivered in Mandarin where I was more comfortable doing so in English! My former colleague, Ms. Kristina Khoo thought that I could make my points better by presenting the key arguments in videos and being the CEO and Principal of the College, I had to put my money where my mouth was and agreed to perform in front of the camera and well directed by Ms Khoo.

By Dr Chow Yong Neng

In April 2015, a bombshell was released by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. Up to 52 of its existing 167 tertiary institutions will have to either close or merge with others within 10 years.

Taiwan and Malaysia have very similar population of 23.4 million and 30.5 million respectively. However Taiwan has more than twice of Malaysia’s per capita GDP at US$22,979 compared to Malaysia’s US$9,766 and its 167 tertiary institutions are considered as 52 too many.

Malaysia currently has 20 public universities, 37 polytechnics, 94 community colleges, 43 other state-funded training centres, 99 private universities and university colleges and 402 private colleges. These add up to a total of 695 tertiary institutions in Malaysia*.

What about Malaysia which has a total of 695 tertiary institutions? Can our economic and demographic factors support this more than 4-fold in the number of colleges and universities in Malaysia compared to Taiwan’s figure? In other words, if Taiwan needs to reduce her universities by more than 30 per cent over a ten-year period would Malaysia, with a lower per capita GDP need to follow suit?

Taiwan has a tertiary education enrollment rate (i.e. how many percent of its youth receive tertiary education) of close to 99 per cent compared to Malaysia’s 37 per cent. Does that mean Malaysia still has plenty of scope for its tertiary education sector to secure the enrollment of students and fill its collective capacities?

Proportional comparison with US’s figures

Let us look at the best example available as a “base model”, that is the United States of America with a population of around 321 million, per capita GDP of US$55,837 and 4,726 accredited tertiary institutions** (please refer to Table 1). We can compare both Taiwan’s and Malaysia’s tertiary education sector using the data of the USA to estimate the “maximum sustainable number of tertiary institutions” by asking just three questions.

Table 1: Comparison of 3 nations’ tertiary education: population, per capita GDP & number of tertiary institutions
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Population (millions)	321	23.38	30.75
Per capita GDP (US$)	$55,837	$21,979	$9,766
No. of accredited tertiary institutions	4,726	167	695
Tertiary student population (millions)	21	1.34	1.42
Average population per institution	67,922	140,000	44,245
Average number of students per institution	4,444	8,024	2,043

Question 1:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBPuKEo-hHI]

Based solely on USA’s population and the number of US tertiary institutions, what will be the maximum number of institutions that Taiwan and Malaysia can support?

We can easily answer this question by dividing the population figure of Taiwan or Malaysia by that of the US then multiply the results by 4,726 (the number of accredited tertiary institutions in the USA). Essentially a proportional comparison which is presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Comparison of Taiwan’s & Malaysia’s sustainable number of tertiary institutions based on the USA’s model using population data
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Population (millions)	321	23.38	30.75
Maximum sustainable number of institutions	4,726	344	453

It is clear that, based on population alone, Taiwan can easily have twice her present number of tertiary institutions. However the same cannot be said about Malaysia. At 695 Malaysia is already having an excess of 242 tertiary institutions.

Question 2:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QeG5kL_jEY]

Based solely on USA’s per capita GDP and the number of US tertiary institutions, what will be the maximum number of institutions that Taiwan and Malaysia can support?

As in Question 1, we can use the same logic to do a proportional comparison of the data for both Taiwan and Malaysia using the USA’s as the “base figures” as presented in Table 3.

Table 3: Comparison of Taiwan’s & Malaysia’s sustainable number of tertiary institutions based on the USA’s model using per capital GDP data
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Per capita GDP (US$)	$55,837	$21,979	$9,766
Maximum sustainable number of institutions	4,726	1,860	827

If we consider per capita GDP in isolation, the economy of Taiwan could easily sustain over 11-folds the number of tertiary institutions that she presently has whereas Malaysia will still be able to “top up” the present 695 institutions by another 132.

Question 3:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBRJjU4xFEE]

What will be the maximum sustainable number of tertiary institutions for Taiwan & Malaysia if we factor in the combined effect of per capita GDP and population as compared to the USA model?

We really need to combine both the economic and demographic figures in our proportional comparison to determine the maximum sustainable number of tertiary institutions for each country. To come out with the comparison, we divide each figure (be it population or per capita GDP) with the corresponding USA’s figure, multiply the result of both economic and demographic comparison together with the USA’s current number of tertiary institutions. The result of this comparison is presented in Table 4.

Table 4: Comparison of Taiwan’s & Malaysia’s sustainable number of tertiary institutions based on the USA’s model using both population & per capita GDP data.
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Population (millions)	321	23.38	30.75
per capita GDP (US$)	$55,837	$21,979	$9,766
Maximum sustainable number of institutions	4,726	135	79

The combination of both economic and demographic figures of the respective countries reveal something very staggering. Both Taiwan and Malaysia are already having too many tertiary institutions and the Taiwanese government has rightly put up a policy in April 2015 to reduce the number of tertiary institutions in the country in view of dwindling college-going population and the country’s already close to 99% tertiary enrollment rate.

When one looks at the maximum sustainable number of tertiary institutions for Malaysia of 79, one will not be blamed for suspecting some mistakes were committed in its calculation. But this figure has been estimated based on available data. With 616 “excess” number of tertiary institutions, what can Malaysia do to address the problem? Is it possible at all to reduce the number of tertiary institutions in Malaysia by close to 90 per cent?

Will increase in tertiary enrollment rate from the current 37 per cent to 94 per cent (USA’s current rate) be sufficient to solve the problem? Let us just do another proportional comparison:

[94% / 37%] * 79 institutions = 201 institutions

Thus even if we have 94 per cent tertiary enrollment rate, we will still need to close / merge around 500 tertiary institutions in Malaysia.

In fact, even if we miraculously increase Malaysia’s per capita GDP by 50 per cent to say US$15,000 and we have 94 per cent tertiary enrollment rate, Malaysia can only sustain:

[94%/37%] * [US$15,000 / US$9,766] * 79 institutions = 308 institutions

We will still be needing to merge or close down 387 tertiary institutions in Malaysia!

Solutions

With not much scope to raise the population of 18 year-old by a significant figure annually for the foreseeable future, Malaysia will have to follow in Taiwan’s footsteps. The key difference between Malaysia and Taiwan is that the bulk of the struggling institutions are privately owned and funded, there is no such thing as the withdrawal of grants and subsidies to entice these owners to consider merging or closing.

The fact remains that this issue has been overshadowing the entire private tertiary education industry since its reaching a peak of around 730 private tertiary institutions around 2002. The past 14 years did see some form of consolidation in the private tertiary education industry where the number of private institutions have dwindled down by close to 230 to the present 501 institutions (data as provided by the Ministry of Higher Education for May 2016).

The billion Ringgit question is whether this figure could be further reduced by another 380 to 400 to provide the industry with sustainability.

One thing is perfectly clear, “Consolidation is certain, resistance is futile!”

One may ask, “When shall we expect a bombshell be released by the power that be in Malaysia?” To this I shall answer, “Your guess is as good as mine!”

Footnotes:
*More accurate estimations were available along with more up-to-date data being acquired by the author since the publication of this article in August 2015 and the revised analysis though did not affect the conclusion but nevertheless the author feels that it should be presented to the readers.

The number of higher education institutions in Malaysia should be computed to include only those institutions which offer diploma and higher academic qualifications and hence shall exclude community colleges. Based on this principle, the number of tertiary institutions is revised as follows: Public universities (20), Polytechnics (37), State-funded vocational institutions with capability to offer diploma and advanced diploma (20), private universities & university colleges (96), private colleges (401), making a total of 574 (and not 695) higher education institutions.

In addition to the 94 state funded public community colleges, there are 813 private accredited training institutions, 80 public vocational colleges and 320 other training institutions funded by various ministries making a total of 1307 institutions in Malaysia offering vocational skill training programmes (below diploma level), catering mainly to school leavers.

**Based on data compiled from US’s National Center of Education Statistics, the total number of accredited colleges and universities in the USA (2013 -2014 survey) was 4,599 and not 4726 as reported earlier. The population of the USA has also been revised upward to 324 million to reflect the latest (2016) figure. Likewise the GDP of Taiwan has been revised based on the latest figure obtained.

Hence the following tables with the revised data are being presented to our readers.

Table 1: Comparison of 3 nations’ tertiary education: population, per capita GDP & number of tertiary institutions (revised)
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Population (millions)	324	23.38	30.75
Per capita GDP (US$)	$55,837	$22,294	$9,766
No. of accredited tertiary institutions	4,599	167	574
Tertiary student population (millions)	21	1.34	1.42
Average population per institution	70,450	140,000	53,5711
No. of student per institution	4,566	8,024	2,474

Table 2: Comparison of Taiwan’s & Malaysia’s sustainable number of tertiary institutions based on the USA’s model using population data (revised)
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Population (millions)	324	23.38	30.75
Maximum sustainable number of institutions	4,599	332	436

Table 3: Comparison of Taiwan’s & Malaysia’s sustainable number of tertiary institutions based on the USA’s model using per capita GDP data (revised)
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Per capita GDP (US$)	$55,837	$22,294	$9,766
Maximum sustainable number of institutions	4,599	1836	804

Table 4: Comparison of Taiwan’s & Malaysia’s sustainable number of tertiary institutions based on the USA’s model using both population & per capita GDP data. (revised)
Country	USA	Taiwan	Malaysia
Population (millions)	324	23.38	30.75
per capita GDP (US$)	$55,837	$22,294	$9,766
Maximum sustainable number of institutions	4,599	133	76

All your customers are entitled to quality customer service

All your customers, regardless of their spending budget, expect and deserve good quality and prompt customer service, if you fail to provide this, they can always vote with their feet.

I was a guest of Professor Lin Hsiou-Wei, Dean of Management College, Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan in late July 2016. It was my first trip to Taiwan. Upon arrival at Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei, after immigration and custom clearance, I was looking to buy a local SIM card so that I could stay in contact with the office (and my family) back home as well as with my host. A counter was spotted and I proceeded towards it. I saw five very elegant looking young ladies (PYT – pretty young things as coined by the late Michael Jackson) sitting at the counter. What happened next went on to show why Taiwan is such a great holiday destination.

As I arrived at the counter all five PYTs jumped up from their stools, greeted me with smiles and went on to sell me the most suitable SIM card package for my short trip. While one PYT handled my money, one was explaining to me the features of the SIM package, what I could do etc., the third PYT was busy working on putting the SIM card in my smartphone which had 2 slots for SIM cards. The whole episode took no more than 3 minutes, I was then able to send an “arrived safely” message to my family back in Malaysia. My first impression of Taiwan was several hundred percent boosted by this small encounter (PYTs aside!)!

Just a few weeks before, my former colleague Peter Tang brought his guest, Mr. Li Qunshan of Hunan University, China to visit me at Han Chiang College. Mr. Li needed to fly from Penang to Johor Baru (JB) at the conclusion of his visit to Penang. We booked him on a Malindo Air evening flight which required him to transit in Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). Mr. Li who could only speak Mandarin (and a bit of Russian as he is from the border region between China and Russia) made a frantic call to me at around 5:30 pm. He said that he was not allowed to board (15 minutes before his scheduled flight) and the people there could not tell him what was happening. I ended up asking him to pass his mobile phone to the airline staff at the boarding gate and spoke to the Malaysian Airline System’s (MAS) staff in Malay to discover that Mr. Li’s Malindo Air flight was delayed and the boarding gate for his flight was re-assigned. When I asked the MAS staff which was the new boarding gate, the answer was, “Saya tak tau, kamu suruh dia tanya orang Malindo sendiri” (I don’t know, you tell him to ask the Malindo Air people). By then, Mr. Li, who was to attend a key event in Johor Baru was panicking. I tried my best to convey the MAS staff’s message but Mr. Li kept asking, “Where should I go to board my flight?” I was not in the position to answer him as I was 500 km away in Penang. My attempt to get him to find the flights information LED screen was futile as Mr. Li reminded me that he could not read English. At the last resort, I suggested that Mr. Li look for a Chinese-looking staff or even young Chinese Malaysian looking person who might speak Mandarin for help. 15 minutes later, I called Mr. Li and both of us were relieved that he finally found the new boarding gate and his flight was delayed by 90 minutes so he did not miss it. Mr. Li told me that he asked a Cathay Pacific staff for help and luckily for us, he was willing to take the trouble to find for Mr. Li the re-assigned boarding gate.

I feel that the quality of service of Malaysian airlines (both Malindo and MAS) left much to be desired. Malindo Air, knowing that there was a transit passenger in a delayed connecting flight where the assigned boarding gate was changed in the last minute should have stationed someone at the arrival/boarding gate of the Penang – KLIA flight to take care of Mr. Li. But that did not happen. The MAS staff was even less customer friendly. It did not take much effort to look up the new boarding gate for the Malindo Air’s KLIA – JB flight as this sort of information would be easily obtainable from their computer terminals. They could have also alerted Malindo Air staff of Mr. Li’s predicament. But the MAS staff had chosen to ignore the problem. At the very least, knowing Mr. Li being a China National, the MAS staff could have just ask any of the passengers who could speak Mandarin (I am sure with 97% Chinese Malaysians having studied in Chinese primary schools, SJK(C), it would not be an issue) and helped Mr. Li accordingly.

Can Malaysia hope to attain her tourism target each year with this low quality of customer service at our international airports? I seriously doubt it!

On the international front, I think customer service quality is the determinant factor for the success of an international business at any market overseas if prompt service can be provided locally. In my “early” days of social media marketing of 2013, Facebook local office in the region did not provide technical or customer support. Often if you had issues, it would mean that you were on your own. There was once that we had a credit card issue (where a payment was refused by our bank and the advertising account was barred), it took us more than two weeks to get FB to resolve the issue. Luckily for us, we had a backup credit card, but even then it took about 48 hours for the switch of the credit card to take effect. It meant that we were really not able to have our advertisements reaching our target audience for 48 hours! Then recently Facebook which opened its regional office in Singapore back in 2010 decided that customer service provided at the local level was important and one of their staff indeed made contact with us to provide both training and technical advisory to allow us to make full use of FB’s advertising power and get us more bangs for our advertising ringgit. My digital marketing team (there were only the three of us, yours truly included) were very happy and learned a number of tweaks and tricks to stretch our advertising budget and to have more effective social media marketing campaigns.

We also have an advertising account with LinkedIn at my college. However, LinkedIn did not provide us with a full administrator access to our advertising account and as such simple procedures such as the change of authorized users would have to be requested by us and carried out by LinkedIn. LinkedIn also has an office in Singapore which, like FB, is serving the region. When recently I needed to nominate another senior staff to be given access to our advertising account I first sent a LinkedIn internal message to the service personnel assigned to our account. It took him a few hours to respond to say that it would be done. 24 hours later, the request was still not acted upon. A second message to this guy was replied a few hours later to say that for technical stuff, it might be best for me to contact the person directly…but neither the technical support person’s name nor his/her contact details were given! I waited for another few hours, to no avail. I then proceeded to do some research and found out who was the person actually acting as our “account manager”. But there was no way I could contact this lady directly. I had to send an internal message to ask to be connected with her first. After a day she accepted my request to connect and only then was I able to alert her of my problem. It took another few hours for her to get back to me to say that the request was acted upon. All in all, it took LinkedIn more than 96 hours to act on a simple “please take out User A and replace with User B” request.

In desperation, before I was able to find and connect with my “account manager”, I even tweeted a message to LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner but of course, I did not get any response. I am just a small fry of a customer in little ole Malaysia! The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) applies, I guess and I belong to the “80” crowd!

Even clients with small budget deserve to have the basic service quality from Linkedin. I am not sure if LinkedIn realizes that some of those in the “80” crowd, if they are treated well, could well turn into your “star” customers of the future!

I wonder if it is because of the fact LinkedIn now is owned by Microsoft that it has a different customer service philosophy or if it was because of the relatively small (by their standard) advertising account we have which put us in the back of any customer service queue? Now would you wonder why advertisers are not flocking to LinkedIn?

I monitor my college’s social media pages closely and I have been known to show my displeasure to my staff if there was a delay in answering any Facebook messages left on our FB Page, respond to messages left on our “live chat” app by enquirers during our “office off” hours etc.. With the internet being used as the first line of enquiry today, providing your potential customers (and existing customers) with prompt and quality service is the key to success. This holds true regardless of which industry you are in but it is more crucial for service industries like higher education. If prompt responses are not forthcoming, the potential students (and parents) today can just move on to the next college for answers and may enroll with your competitor instead. Thus high-quality service is even more important in the private higher education sector in Malaysia which is facing tremendous turmoils with cut-throat competition amid a dwindling local student market where more and more alternatives are available both locally and overseas. I think colleges that provide the best quality and prompt service will be the ones that will ride through this storm.

I opine that the key to Taiwan’s tourism industry raking in good sales could well be the tourist-friendly nature of the Taiwanese people. Throughout the short four days visit I had in Taiwan in late July 2016, I was amazed by the care and quality of customer service that was provided by everyone in the service industry from the friendly hotel staff, the waitress at the local cafe to the express bus service counter guy, everyone was making me feel very welcome and everyone took pride in their jobs and exhibited great work ethics. If Malaysians could emulate even 20% of the Taiwanese attitude towards visitors, we will be very much closer to being a developed nation and could rake in more tourism earning! The “not my problem” attitude shown by MAS staff towards my visitor, Mr. Li will not be productive towards Malaysia’s aim of 2 million tourists from China for 2016.

All your customers, regardless of their spending budget, expect and deserve good quality and prompt customer service, if you fail to provide this, they can always vote with their feet.