Factors Influencing Muslim International Students to Choose Malaysian Public Universities for Higher Education: A Case study of Pakistani Female Doctoral Students

Abstract

International higher education especially in a developing country like Pakistan is very important as it leads to obtain a doctoral degree from a foreign university. Evidently, higher education is strongly related to students’ social and cultural background and highly paid employment opportunities. Using grounded theory (GT) research method, this paper explores and analyses pull factor, specifically the availability of Halal food in Malaysia that attracts or pull Pakistani female students to choose Malaysian public universities for their higher education. Besides, other factors, including food neophobia, food facilities, its preparation time, cost and quality, have been found as push factors. However, food festivals and cooking and eating together have been revealed as positive factors minimizing the adverse impact of push factors on female doctoral students.