It is interesting to note the Malaysian national newspapers making a point that numbers of foreign students enrolled in colleges and universities here have dropped by 50% to less than 25,000 and that China has increased to 70,000 and Singapore double that of Malaysia. I am not surprised by the fact that our competitiveness has dropped as the superb campuses that I have seen in Fujian province, China rivals that of any of the universities that I have studied in the UK and Melbourne, Australia. It is only a matter of time before those two countries make a mark in global academia. Already there is an inflow of students from foreign countries willing to learn Putonghua on the mainland seeing it as the langauge of commerce in the Asian region in due course. Jobs are also springing up there never seen before.
