Arabic Travelogue: Aspiring Internationalisation through a GISO Experience

Malaysia, once a colonised country, is becoming known worldwide in many aspects, one of which is gaining international attraction, education. Since its independence in 1957, the education plan in Malaysia has gone through tremendous reforms. In line with the fourth industrial revolution, Malaysia has not been left out to be up-to-date with the technological advancement in the 21st century education. This has resulted in Malaysia becoming a choice for education hub among international students. To continue the aspirations of the government, one of the ten shifts in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015-2025 is the internationalisation agenda. Many researches have been conducted to investigate the policies and strategies to increase the number of international student intake at tertiary level. However, there is lack of research on how Malaysian university students are also helping out in achieving the internationalisation agenda. Thus, this paper examines how Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) is responding to the internationalisation phenomenon. This paper begins by providing the background to the country’s internationalisation agenda at tertiary level, and past studies that are relevant to the focus of the paper. Using USIM as a case study in its signature internationalisation initiative, the Global Islamic Student Outreach (GISO), this article examines one GISO activity conducted in 2018 by a group of students from the Faculty of Major Language Studies the activities. The outcomes of the programme is presented and future initiative taken by the faculty to maintain the international collaboration is highlighted.