How well do you know your Malaysian varsities?

Public Universities

These are 20 universities funded by the government and they are categorised according to different types, namely: research, comprehensive and technical. Research universities are institutions meant to produce world-class research outputs; comprehensive universities are institutions that offer a wide range of courses for students; and technical universities focus strongly in engineering, technical, defense and management.

Polytechnics

There are about 30 institutions that provide technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Malaysia.  They offer courses for bachelor's degree, Advanced Diploma, Diploma and Special Skills Certificate and are all courses are designed to meet industrial needs. Diploma holders can continue their degree at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, and Universiti Malaysia Pahang. 

Community Colleges

These institutions, mostly located outside Selangor, provide TVET. Community colleges offer certificate and diploma level courses. Disciplines include accounting, architecture, construction, engineering, draughting, entrepreneurship, hospitality, personal services, multimedia, and visual arts.

University Colleges

These are institutions that mainly offer pre-university and diploma programmes.

Colleges

These are institutions that mainly offer pre-university and diploma programmes. Some are able to provide degree courses, twinning programmes included, through a local or foreign partner university. 

Universities

These are institutions of higher education that offer all course levels - from pre-university to postgraduate. Unlike university colleges, universities can confer their own degree. 

Foreign Branch Campuses

These is the result of Malaysian government’s partnership with international higher education institutions. Through government invitations, international universities set up branch campuses in Malaysia for the purpose of expanding their global outreach and student exchange. To date, Malaysia has more than 10 foreign branch campuses:

1. University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
2. University of Southampton Malaysia Campus
3. Monash University
4. Reading University
5. Curtin University Sarawak Campus
6. Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus
7. Newcastle University Medicine (NuMED) Malaysia
8. Manipal International University
9. Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology (NMIT)
10. Raffles University Iskandar Malaysia
11. Heriot-Watt Malaysia Campus
12. Xiamen University