African international students in the Malaysia Education Blueprint : Experiences of racialization and othering

This chapter focuses on the educational and cultural experiences of African international students from Nigeria and Sudan studying in Malaysian tertiary education institutions, since Nigeria and Sudan were among the top ten sending countries of international students in Malaysia. The Malaysian public continues to display racial discrimination when it comes to the visibly different African international students. The English medium of instruction in the Malaysian private higher education institutions attracts a growing number of international students as this provides them with a degree qualification to work in the global marketplace. The chapter examines the ways in which research participants negotiated racialization and othering as African international students in the Malaysian context. It discusses the ways in which African international students are racially and religiously positioned by the Malaysian media and broader society. African students have been drawn to Malaysian public and especially private universities by extensive marketing campaigns to bring foreign capital into the Malaysian educational market..