LAUSR

Recently, the Malaysian government announced the possibility of establishing a Japanese university's branch campus in Malaysia. The most likely candidate for the first Japanese university to pave the way to Malaysia is Tsukuba University. It is part of the Look East Policy 2.0 revived by the previous Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamad. Before this, many universities from abroad have set up various forms of transnational higher education (TNHE) in Malaysia, including from countries such as Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States of America and China. The Malaysian Government in her Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education) (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2015) indicates that it intends to increase international students to 250,000 by 2025 to strengthen its position as an international higher education hub. Malaysia has acquired various strengths, opportunities and experience based on its past track record, which prove that this task is not monumental. This paper explores the strengths and opportunities that Malaysia has acquired and accumulated to enhance its capabilities as an international higher education hub to achieve the internationalisation goal by delineating the sustainability aspect of the transnational higher education plan in Malaysia. Malaysia, through the establishment of the IBCs, has identified various strengths involving TNHE. Those strengths include regional education hub, ability to attract a large pool of international students, capitalising on the power of the MQF, self-accreditation status given to TNHEs, cost advantage and education tourism potential.   Keywords: transnational higher education, international branch campus, regional education hub, globalisation, Malaysia