Malaysia is fast becoming a major attraction for candidates from all over the world to pursue their higher education. Currently students (local and international) who pursue postgraduate (hereafter, PG) education in Malaysia use the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scores as indicators of their English ability. These are tests from the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively, tailor-made for university education in those countries. Recent literature in testing and evaluation describes the need for more localized tests, developed for the "local" context of a particular country. Thus, the need for a test that could be utilized and customized to the needs of the students studying in Malaysia is foreseeable. This is in line with the concept of test localization. It stipulates that for a test to be valid, its design and development must take into consideration the population, context, and the domain in which the test is used. A project was undertaken where a new English test named Graduate Admission Test of English (GATE) was developed for PG admission into universities in Malaysia. This article describes the process of developing a new test that measures English language competency of PG students who intend to pursue their studies in Malaysia. It includes the use of a test specification/blueprint that contains validity elements adopted from a test validation framework developed by Weir. The article emphasizes the rigor of developing such a test, which includes aspects of test development, operation, analysis, and validation.

This paper reports the significance of an internship experience which is intended to assist students to obtain jobs

Currently, education is facing overwhelming challenges in terms of the generation of students that the universities are taking in and the demands of the industry. This is propagated further by the enhancement of modern technology. Therefore, the courses offered in universities must ensure that graduates are ready for the working world and a good well rounded curriculum is needed to achieve this. In Malaysia, the body governing academic quality is the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) and they require curriculums to be reviewed every 3 – 5 years to ensure their relevance to industry requirements. A curriculum usually undergoes years of ‘trials’ and changes before a sound one can be produced. In essence, a curriculum needs to be reviewed for the f ollowing reasons; the dynamic nature of a curriculum, to keep abreast with new approaches in learning and teaching and best practices in teaching strategies. Students need to be trained and well-exposed to meet the challenges of the globalised world and function well at the workplace. Due to these reasons, the paper discusses the processes involved in reviewing a curriculum. A program from the Academy of Language Studies in UiTM Malaysia was selected as a case to highlight the stages, challenges and outcomesof the review.

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