Malaysia has a population of about 30 million people. Open and distance learning (ODL) is popular in Malaysia, with about half of working adults involved in it. Malaysia has hosted a number of important COL meetings and events, including the Eighth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in November 2016.

School-age Population by Education Level1

3,162,457

 

2,847,346

Secondary

 

Tertiary

 

 

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in Secondary Education
for the school year ending 20181

85.4%

 

78.8%

Female

 

Male

 

 

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in Tertiary Education
for the school year ending 20181

49.9%

 

40.7%

Female

 

Male

 

 

Percentage of female teachers in 1

67.4%

 

50.2%

Secondary (2018)

 

Tertiary (2018)

 

 

1. UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Centre, retrieved in March 2020

 

Literacy rate (2010)1

90.8%

 

95.4%

Adult (15+) literacy rate
Female

 

Adult (15+) literacy rate
Male

 

 

Economic Activity (2010)1

46%

 

64%

Adult (15+) economic activity
Female

 

Adult (15+) economic activity
Male

 

 

Political Decision Making (2014)1

13%

Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament

 

 

Life expectancy (2012)1

76

 

72

Female

 

Male

 

 

1. COL gender country profile April 2015 

 

20.4 134.5
Fixed-telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1 Mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1

 

 

  
8.6 116.7
Fixed-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1 Mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants1

 

 

  
71.7 81.2
Households with a computer (%)1 Individuals using the internet (%)1

 

 

1. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT Eye Country profile, retrieved in March 2020

Highlights

The Commonwealth of Learning’s (COL) work in Malaysia is primarily in the area of higher education and technology-enabled learning. 

Higher education

COL’s Higher Education initiative works to develop human resources for social and economic development across the Commonwealth. It supports higher education institutions and ministries in capacity building, policy development and curriculum reform. COL is working with Wawasan Open University (WOU) to offer the Commonwealth Executive Masters in Business Administration and Commonwealth Executive Masters in Public Administration (CEMBA/CEMPA) Programme. WOU also holds a seat on the Executive Governing Board and Academic Board of the programme. Learn more about the Higher Education initiative. 

Technology-Enabled Learning

COL’s Technology-Enabled Learning initiative aims to encourage more institutions to integrate technology-enabled learning and OER practices to improve teaching and learning for innovation and skills development. As part of the Advanced ICT Skills Development project, the Open University Malaysia is working with five other open universities in Africa and Asia to develop courses related to web application development and mobile application development. Learn more about the Technology-Enabled Learning initiative.

Partners

Partnerships are fundamental to COL’s work. Strategic partnerships allow COL to broaden its reach and engage at global, regional and national levels, while implementation partners support COL’s work in communities and institutions across Commonwealth Member States. Partners include multilateral organisations, regional bodies, national governments, government agencies, foundations, civil society organisations, public and private (not-for-profit) institutions and the private sector.

COL's partners in Malaysia include: 

  • Asia eUniversity
  • Ministry of Higher Education
  • Open University Malaysia
  • Universiti Malaysia Sabah
  • Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia
  • Wawasan Open University