South Africa vs. Malaysia PhD

Hello everyone,

What do you think? Should I go for a South African or a Malaysian degree? I am planning to start my PhD in Education and as my options are limited, I want to hear your thoughts about whether to choose Wits University in South Africa or Universiti Sains Malaysia.

By the way, it's not going to be DL or Online, I will go and live there.

Any tips or ideas?

Thanks

 

So I'm going to say up front that I have some biases/prejudices in this matter and I'll state them as they come up. The first thing I'll say is that you haven't said anything about your goals for earning this degree and you haven't said anything about where you plan to live after earning it and both of those might affect the answer that people give you. That said, I'm going to nudge you toward Witts. It's a higher ranked school (200 v 600) and I believe it would have better name recognition.
I am generally more familiar with the country of South Africa and I think that I would fit in there more comfortably than Malaysia which has a majority Islamic population
(prejudice). I would have some concern about extremist views toward women and maybe getting stuck with a dis advisor who was a little on the hardcore side of things. I have a general sense(based on ?) that South Africa could have a higher percentage of English language speakers. I also don't know if I'd want to live on n island for a bunch of years (too many episodes of Gilligan's Island?). If you were not planning on living there my answer might be different (although it might not although I don't think Witts is known for DL doctorates or DL in general anyway).

 

When students go to study overseas, one variable to take into consideration is the job market in the country of study and possibilities to find employment after graduation and work legally.

I have never been to South Africa but I've been to Malaysia and they seem to have a good economy with a reasonable quality of life but I don't know the legal aspect in terms of how difficult is for a foreign graduate to work in the country. It is for you to find out.
I work in Academics, I heard from few local people that is very difficult to find English speaking academics so it is possible that job prospects are good for foreign PhD graduates but this comes from few professors that I have spoken to so you need to do a bit more research to validate this.

 

South Africa

 

A few additions to this conversation:
English is very common in Malaysia, so no worries about integrating into the local culture, as long as you make the effort to do so. It is a beautiful and very diverse culture. Medical facilities in Malaysia are some of the best in Asia (becoming a new retirement destination for a lot of Westerners now because of this). Cost of living is very little, but life is comfortable. Summers are ridiculously hot.

 

Actually, Malaysian people are one most of the most pleasant people that I have been able to experience in my life with open arms to people that come to visit them. I cannot say the same thing about other countries that are mainly Christian.
I did not see any kind of prejudice against women, on the contrary, many women work as taxi drivers and have positions of authority.
The concept that Muslim countries are not safe is a myth in my opinion. On the contrary, because there are less drugs and alcohol, I felt more safe there than other places.
Malaysia has tolerance for Christians, thing that doesn't happen often in Christian countries towards Muslims. You are allowed to buy Alcohol and not to follow the Muslim rules if yo have a Christian card.
I am Christian but accept Muslim's view of life. I had friendly conversations about religion with some Malaysians and never felt that were insulted because my views. I did not find even one Muslim fanatic in this country.
South Africa might be a great place too but never been there so I cannot comment but Malaysia is a place that I would consider to work and live if I had the opportunity.

 

Universiti Sains Malaysia is in Penang. It's an island west of the mainland of Malaysia. Very nice place to live, safer than mainland Malaysia. Crime is an issue in places like Johor and KL (capital). But if you're going to be in Penang, it's not that bad. Most people speak English. Weather is almost always around 25~35 degrees C. Weather is either rain or shine. Not sure about the university itself, but Penang is a retirement hotspot for foreigners.

 

If I was making a decision based only on the country a university is located in, neither South Africa or Malaysia would be my favored choice, especially if I intended to live there while I was studying and not study by distance learning.

But that is a pretty crude reason for selecting one university over another.

I think that a better strategy would be to look at the reputations of different universities in the subject I wanted to study. If I'm seeking a PhD, I'd want to see research and publications being produced. I'd want to see names that I recognize, respect and would want as a dissertation supervisor on the faculty. I'd pay some attention to whether a university is rising or falling in the charts, to whether it is facing funding problems or political interference, to whether star faculty are arriving or leaving, so as to get some feeling for what its reputation might be after I graduate. If I was considering a doctoral program, I would probably already have some idea of what specialty in my field most interests me. So how well do the strengths of the candidate departments match up with my interests? (That would likely be my most important consideration.)

 

Thanks a lot! Very helpful comments.