A system designed to encourage standards and quality among universities in Southeast Asia is set to be expanded, the official Malaysian news agency Bernama reports. At a recent meeting for regional leaders in Bali, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin of Malaysia said the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Credit Transfer System would be broadened to include more universities, programs, and students.

The program, which began in 2010, currently includes Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, and is designed to promote the internationalization and “harmonization of the quality of higher education” within the region, he said. Malaysia’s government wants to make the country a hub for higher education, and officials have said in the past that they want to bring some 150,000 foreign students to the country by 2015, nearly double the current number.