International Council of Islamic Finance Educators

The Launching of Malaysia Islamic Finance Education Report (MIFER) Atlas 2021 and Beyond

Synopsis

MIFER Atlas 2021 and Beyond report focuses on three (3) main areas namely, the programmes offered, the talent development as well as graduates’ employability of Higher Education Institution that offer Islamic Finance and Muamalat programmes. This report managed to cover all Islamic finance education providers in Malaysia comprising both Public Universities (PUs) and Private Higher Education Institutions (PrHEIs), as well as Public Higher Education Institutions (PuHEIs). The report also covers all levels such as Diploma, Bachelor, Master, and PhD programmes. Retrieved from open-source data from both MQA and individual universities’ websites, the report also generates findings based on both static analysis via bibliometric approach as well as dynamic analysis which is based on Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence framework. The findings reaffirm the diversity in terms of nomenclature, programme design, programme levels, as well as the titles of programmes offered by Pus, PrHEIs, and PuHEIs. It is also interesting to note that talents in Islamic finance education have highly cited international reputed publications world-wide in all domains, such as Islamic finance, Islamic economics, Shariah and Law, Halal management, and
others. In this report, we have also managed to identify research expertise of Islamic finance talents in selected educational institutions. For employability of Islamic finance graduates, the data for the period 2017-2019 suggests that being an entrepreneur is still not the most preferred job among Islamic finance graduates both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. More initiatives are therefore needed to tackle this issue of preparing our graduates for both national and global market demands.