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Arabic Travelogue: Aspiring Internationalisation through a GISO Experience
*1Ramiaida Darmi, 2Mohd. Nizwan Musling
1,2Faculty of Major Language Studies, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
*E-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Malaysia, once a colonised country, is becoming known worldwide in many aspects, one of which is gaining international attraction, education. Since its independence in 1957, the education plan in Malaysia has gone through tremendous reforms. In line with the fourth industrial revolution, Malaysia has not been left out to be up-to-date with the technological advancement in the 21st century education.
This has resulted in Malaysia becoming a choice for education hub among international students. To continue the aspirations of the government, one of the ten shifts in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015-2025 is the internationalisation agenda. Many researches have been conducted to investigate the policies and strategies to increase the number of international student intake at tertiary level. However, there is lack of research on how Malaysian university students are also helping out in achieving the internationalisation agenda. Thus, this paper examines how Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) is responding to the internationalisation phenomenon. This paper begins by providing the background to the country’s internationalisation agenda at tertiary level, and past studies that are relevant to the focus of the paper. Using USIM as a case study in its signature internationalisation initiative, the Global Islamic Student Outreach (GISO), this article examines one GISO activity conducted in 2018 by a group of students from the Faculty of Major Language Studies the activities. The outcomes of the programme is presented and future initiative taken by the faculty to maintain the international collaboration is highlighted.
Keywords: Internationalisation; collaboration; outreach programme; global; case study
1. INTRODUCTION
The higher education landscape in the world has gone through tremendous shifts, especially due to the industrial revolution. Education has shifted from national to global, from teacher- centred to student-centred, from focused education to flexible education and life-long learning (Azman & Abd. Aziz, 2006). These changes cause the need for a shift in education, which result in bringing Malaysia to a higher level, that is to be known internationally. In higher education, internationalisation has been defined as the process of integrating international dimensions into teaching, learning, research and service (Knight & De Wit, 1997, The International Association of Universities, 2003).
375 Internationalisation of Malaysian Higher Education
One of the ten shifts in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015-2025 is the internationalisation agenda. Currently, there are 20 public universities, 37 Polytechnics and 105 Community Colleges. There are 477 private higher education institutions, of which 53 are private universities and 36 are private university colleges. Malaysia is one of the countries in ASEAN hosting a number of branch campuses from Australia and the United Kingdom. Malaysia like other developing countries is striving to take its higher educational systems to a higher level, whereby internationalisation is one of the seven key thrusts of the National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESP) 2020 (Aziz & Abdullah, 2014a). This thrust aims to achieve the target of 200,000 international students and to position Malaysia as a top-six destination for international students by 2020 (Mohd Ismail & Doria, 2013). Meanwhile, the Internationalisation policy focuses on six core strategies: student mobility, staff mobility, academic programmes, research and development, governance and autonomy including social integration and cultural engagement (MOHE, 2011).
Higher education internationalisation is consisted of two different parts such as internationalisation at home and internationalisation of cross-border education (Ashcroft et al., 2007). According to Knight (2003), internationalisation at home relates to the intercultural and international aspects of the teaching or learning process, curriculum and research, consisting of activities which can assist the students to establish their intercultural skills and international understanding without going away from the campus. Similarly, Daquila (2013). Cross-border education relates to activities for education purposes in abroad, that is internationalisation abroad (Naidoo, 2006). There are various types of cross-border education such as students’
mobility, program mobility, and institution mobility (Stella, 2006).
Studies on Internationalisation in Higher Education
Previous studies have looked at internationalisation from the aspect of the challenges and (Jiang & Carpenter, 2013; Warwick & Moogan, 2013). Jiang and Carpenter (2013) have conducted a qualitative research in the UK to explore the challenging issues of an institution in the pursuit of implementing internationalisation strategy. They found issues such as
‘resource allocation’ that refers to the ‘financial and human resources to strategy execution’,
‘communication’, which is a crucial issue in most university levels, and ‘operational process’
as one of the most critical issues of ‘operational process within faculties. For example, an
376 important challenge for academicians is excessive work as they elaborate that internationalisation conflicts with their teaching at home universities. ‘Cooperation and coordination’ is a main principle to attain a higher level of adherence in an organisation.
‘Organizational culture and resistance to change’ assigns to the culture of marketing in promoting internationalisation as a forceful task, since establishing partnerships and recruiting students are the fundamental jobs. ‘Student support’ attributes to the issues of student assists:
focusing on English language, student agreements as well as transport and accommodation.
Finally, ‘external environment’, including governmental policy, visa regulations and English- language requirements.
Another study by Warwick and Moogan (2013) focused on the comparison of UK institutions in understanding of internationalisation strategies suggested prerequisites for successful university internationalisation strategies. It is suggested that a university should have (1) an academic organised approach to strategic management to maintain flexibility in adopting changing circumstances in the external environment; (2) a close link between the organisation’s resource capabilities and its external environment, maintained through ongoing organisational development; (3) an evident comprehensiveness of how the internationalisation strategy is going to be applied and supported within the organisation; (4) adequate two-way communication routes with staff; (5) appropriate progress among staff to support opportunities for internationalisation along with parallel systems to disseminate good practice developed in local-level initiatives and pilot schemes; and (6) ongoing commitment and support for internationalisation and its underpinning values from the top of the organisation and leadership of the internationalisation agenda from senior academics in the organisation, a review procedure in a system that can monitor and evaluate the development to revise the necessary strategies.
Focus of the Paper
Based on previous studies, there seems to be a lot of research on internationalisation strategies that institutions have taken to aspire international collaboration. However, in realising international aspirations, some universities taken an advanced/extended approach by involving home university students in the international agenda. One of the universities that exposes students to this agenda is Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. Due to the lack of research on the involvement of Malaysian university students towards the university internationalisation
377 agenda, this paper examines how Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) students are responding to the internationalisation phenomenon. Using USIM as a case study, this article examines one of the activities involved in the pursuit of internationalisation. As an Islamic based university, USIM encourages students to help achieve the aspirations of the internationalisation agenda through its signature programme named Global Islamic Staff/Students Outreach (GISO) programme.
Global Islamic Students Outreach (GISO)
USIM aspires to produce a generation of balanced multi-lingual leaders who are respected, referred and relevant with a social conscience. The social responsibility and awareness among staff and students are achieved through several programmes, one of which is the Global Islamic Staff/Student Outreach Programme (GISO). Recognised as USIM’s highly successful flagship programmes, GISO outreach projects are merit based which are initiated and implemented overseas using funds raised by the staff and students. To date more than 40 countries have benefitted from this programme. Administered under Unit Kesukarelawanan, Bahagian Hal Ehwal Pelajar, USIM, GISO has been a signature program since 2011, aiming at creating a channel for USIM students to be actively involved in Islamic missions via various types of activities such as community engagement and volunteerism. It is an internationalisation programme in USIM with the aim of building soft skills and values among students. The focus is on regional and other minority Muslim countries around the world. There are four (4) main components of volunteerism – knowledge transfer, community engagement, cross culture and environmental sustainability. USIM is the only university in Malaysia that has a structured internationalisation programme that is recognised by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia. USIM hopes that GISO will empower the communities and provide capability towards the transformation of their life to a higher level with the acquired knowledge and experience. USIM hopes to fulfil its objectives of supporting international relation that promotes knowledge transfer and cultural understanding for the benefits of stakeholders.
Figure 1 provides a summary of GISO programmes that have been conducted from 2011 to 2020, involving various countries - China, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Cambodia, Loas, Timor Liste, Vietnam, Thailand, Mauritius, Maldives, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Singapore, Brunei and United Arab Emirates), Lebanon, Maghribi, Krygztan, Madagascar, Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Bornia Herzegoniva, Jordan and Poland.
378 Figure 1: USIM GISO PROGRAMMES (2011 – 2020)
(Source: www.usim. https://hep.usim.edu.my/pengembaraan-usim-giso/) 2. THE CASE STUDY: ARABIC TRAVELOGUE
The case study involved reporting the observation made during a GISO programme named
‘Arabic Travelogue”. As the accompanying officer for the programme, the researcher observed the journey of the programme from the initial stage to the completion stage. The ‘Arabic Travelogue’ was conducted by a group of twenty students from the Bachelor of Arabic and Communication programme in Faculty of Major of Language Studies. The selection of destination to Yogyakarta is said to be a state based on Islamic principles with many boarding schools in Islamic Studies and universities as well as many historical places that can be visited.
Moreover, a visit to Yogyakarta, Indonesia could provide exposure and clear description of Islamic civilization development and acquire the resources and benefits associated with various aspects of Islam that are very effective. ‘Arabic Travelogue’ consisted of three activities – an academic visit to Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogjakarta (UMY), a community visit to two orphanage homes (Panti Asuhan) and a cultural visit to two places of interest. The number of targeted participants involved in the programme were twenty Arabic education students from UMY, and twenty orphanage participants respectively from each orphanage home.
Academic Visit at UMY
The first programme was an academic visit to the Education Faculty of UMY. Two activities were conducted – a forum, and a seminar. Both activities aimed at usage of the Arabic language among both groups of students from USIM and UMY. The title of the forum was
‘Challenges of Arabic Communication in the future’. The objectives of the forum were to create awareness among the student participants on the need for communicating in Arabic for the purpose of applying Islamic practice in the real world, to share of knowledge of the Arabic
10,301 USIM students
31 countries 452 Visits
379 language, to exchange ideas in developing communication skill in Arabic, and to expose students to the important aspects of Arabic communication for the spread of Islam and Da’wah.
The forum involved one panel from USIM Arabic and Communication students, one panel from UMY, and also one lecturer from UMY Arabic programme. After the forum, the programme continued with a seminar named ‘Education and Learning Seminar’. The seminar provided a platform for students (UMY and USIM) to present their academic project. The objectives of the seminar were to improve presentation skills and to share opinion on the projects that students conducted, as well to enhance students’ critical and problem solving skills, specifically through the practice of the use of Arabic. The medium of communication for the forum and seminar was Arabic.
Community Visits
The next programme that was conducted was community visit to two orphanage homes – Panti Asuhan Yatim Putra Muhammadiyah, Yogjakarta and Panti Asuhan Aisyiyah, Yogjakarta. It involved twenty participants from each orphanage home, aged between 6 years to 13 years old. This was part of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity conducted to the targetted community. The objectives of the community visits were to open students’ mind about the Arabic language and give them opportunities to communicate in Arabic, as a platform for students to share knowledge and opinion about Arabic language, and to give students the knowledge on how to use Arabic language appropriately. The activities conducted during the community visits were an Arabic workshop and games. Through the Arabic workshop, targetted participants were able to gain knowledge about the importance of Arabic in education, and provide opportunity to participants to improve their soft skill when interacting and giving opinions on current issues. Once the Arabic workshop was done, USIM students conducted games– written MCQ quiz, explorace and oral – which required the participants to practise use of Arabic in simple daily conversations. USIM students also conducted a mini research based on their observations and experiences of the Arabic Workshop and games that they conducted. In the research, USIM students reported their observation about their orphanage participants’ level of understanding of the Arabic language. They observed that participants had different learning styles, and that given more time and exposure to the Arabic language can improve the Arabic language skills among them. In addition, by giving a variety of learning strategies can increase their Arabic vocabulary.
Cultural Visits
380 The next activity was cultural visits to places of interest in Yogjakarta. From the cultural visits, USIM students prepared documentaries of the places of interest. Three main documentaries were produced – on Gunung Merapi, Candi Ijo and Malioboro Street. These documentaries were uploaded in Youtube. Through the publication of the documentaries, it showed that students could train themselves to manage and organise a large scale international programme, and introduce USIM and the Arabic and Communication Programme in FPBU at international level. Besides, students built good relationship between the communities in Yogjakarta specifically UMY and the orphanage homes, and also improved their soft skills and Arabic communication skills. This helped them to prepare to make future deals with the international communities from diverse backgrounds.
Outcome of the ‘Arabic Travelogue’
From the forum and seminar, it was observed that students increased their awareness on the need to give knowledge and awareness on the duties as Muslims who need to promote Islam.
They learned to use Arabic in the real life, gained wider knowledge on the challenges of issues in Arabic language, built and strengthened their soft skills and improved their academic achievement for themselves, the community and the country. In addition, students were also able to understand the importance of applying the Arabic language in their degree programme, and also exchange knowledge, experience and confidence. They were also able to widen their scope on how to convey the idea of teaching and learning Arabic, how to tell others on its use in communication, and how to deal with the community.
3. CONCLUSION
This paper provides a sharing experience of a GISO programme conducted by one group of students from the Faculty of Major Language Studies, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. The GISO programme in 2018 has shed more future opportunities for both USIM and UMY to create other international collaborations. The Faculty of Major Language Studies took a step further by visiting UMY to discuss more collaboration between both parties. As a result, a Memorandum of Agreement was signed in 2019. From then onwards, UMY has sent their academic staff to further their postgraduate studies in USIM, UMY became co-organiser for FPBU’s International Language and Education Conference in 2019 and USIM became the co-
381 organiser for UMY’s conference. Moving from there, UMY invited FPBU lecturers to become the external researcher for UMY research grants and invited FPBU lecturer for their Visiting Professor/Lecturer Programme in 2022/2023 academic session. A summary of the collaboration between UMY is shown in Figure 2.
In conclusion, the international collaboration between USIM and UMY has shown positive improvement from year to year. This shows that international linkage can result in many advantages for sharing of expertise and work, which brings added value to the quality of education in general.
Figure 2: Summary of aspiring the internationalisation agenda through GISO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would like to express appreciation for the support of the sponsors – Faculty of Major Language Studies, USIM Alamiyyah and Student Affairs Division for the support and guidance throughout the planning of Arabic Travelogue.
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