China Students @ Universiti Utara Malaysia

In what I thought was an interesting development, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) welcomed 44 students from China during the first day of a new semester. This is the first time UUM was receiving students from China. They were part of a total of 269 foreigners from Indonesia, Pakistan, the United States and Yemen out of 1,079 new students (that's a fairly high 24.9%).

The Chinese students were interviewed by the Star on Monday.

The students from China found out that there are local students who can speak Mandarin.

"We do not understand English. We are glad there are people here who can understand Mandarin. We feel at home right away. I do not feel like an alien here," said 19-year-old Zhan Chen... It gives us the opportunity to mingle with people from all races. With Mandarin-speaking Malaysians around, it makes things easier for us," she said.

The question I have is, given that they have no understanding of English, and much less, Bahasa Melayu - how are these students going to cope with classes conducted in totally foreign tongues? It will definitely be tougher than watching undubbed Korean movies! How is it practical that they can be accepted into our local universities without the necessary language qualifications?

I have a decent command of spoken Mandarin and a half-decent command of the Chinese written language. But there's no chance in **** I will be able to undertake degree programmes meaningfully in China without first going through some intensive language programme.

In addition, I'm also curious as to how these students are accepted - is there an entrance examination? Or is this a government-to-government "exchange programme"? Or did UUM evaluate based on Chinese examination results? Given the large intake of foreign students, will the standards at the university be maintained, enhanced or further weakened?

How do I get answers to questions like this? Maybe there measures increase will help UUM scrape into the Top 200 rankings for the world universities league table next year.