Japan’s Tsukuba University has opened the country’s first Japanese degree granting branch campus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

The campus – known as the School of Transdisciplinary Science and Design – is found within the University of Malaya and was officially opened during a ceremony on September 2, 2024. 

“This campus is the first university to award Japanese academic degrees overseas, thus becoming a groundbreaking university in the history of Japan’s higher education,” Ikuya Sugisato, international affairs employee at the Ministry of Education (MEXT) told The PIE News. 

“We believe that this effort will greatly contribute to attract students, including Malaysian, and strengthen educational exchanges with quality assurance between Japan and Malaysia,” Sugisato added.  

The branch campus will offer four-year undergraduate degrees in Japanese, English and Malaysian, as approved by MEXT, including the first bachelor of Arts and Science to be awarded in Malaysia.  

Its opening has been six years in the making, first suggested by former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad in 2018. 

We hope that establishment of this branch campus will increase the visibility of Japanese education and strengthen the internationalisation of all Japanese universities

Ikuya Sugisato, MEXT

“The journey to bring the University of Tsukuba’s branch campus [to Malaysia] began in 2018 and today’s ceremony marks the successful culmination of these efforts,” Malaysia’s minister of higher education Zambry Abdul Kadir said at the campus’s opening ceremony. 

“This milestone is not only a testament to our hard work but also a remarkable achievement in the history of our collaboration,” he added. 

Currently, 13 people are enrolled in the campus, comprising of seven Malaysians and six Japanese students.  

It is expected that the student body will mostly be made up of Malaysians, with some students coming from Japan and other ASEAN countries.  

“We hope that the campus will also attract students from other parts of Asia and around the world,” said Sugisato.  

The campus has 14 full-time faculty members from both universities – though this is set to grow – and courses have been jointly developed in fields “encompassing data science, natural science, humanities and immersion in Japanese language and culture,” noted Zambry.  

The University of Tsukuba is responsible for funding the operating costs of the branch campus, with assistance from the Japanese government’s JPY 1.5 billion (£8.1m) budget announced last year to support Japanese universities to set up international branch campuses.  

Sugisato said she was currently unaware of plans to establish other branch campuses, but that the ministry hoped “the reputation of UTMy will grow, and the establishment of approved branch campus will spread to other Japanese universities”. 

The branch campus in Kuala Lumpur also aims to increase exchanges with Japanese students and researchers at the University of Tsukuba, as well as encouraging students to continue their postgraduate studies in Japan, according to MEXT.  

The push to establish Japanese branch campuses is part of the government’s wider internationalisation efforts, as it strives to increase the number of international students in Japan to 400,000, and to send 500,000 Japanese students abroad by 2033. 

“We hope that establishment of such a branch campus will contribute to develop skilled human resources who can make positive impact to the world, to increase the visibility of Japanese education, and also to further strengthen the internationalisation of all Japanese universities,” said Sugisato.