It is a line dating back to the beginning of the Colombo Plan in 1951, advancing two years ago to Australians starting to study in Malaysia on Australian government scholarships.
The Australian Education International traces that journey in a book that it published in Kuala Lumpur, Endeavours of Excellence, casting its sights to a joint future ahead.
Architect Hijjas had been a Colombo Plan scholar at the University of Adelaide and at the University of Melbourne.
Quek, 19, has an aunt who had been a Colombo Plan scholar, whose experience would have had a bearing in Quek's mother attending high school in Melbourne, and going on to study at the University of Melbourne.
Quek has followed in her mother's footsteps.
Hijjas would have been at Norsiah's Kitchen, down Swanston Street from the University of Melbourne, had Norsiah Long and husband Mohamed Nor Bujang and their son Fitri relocated from Singapore in the 1960s.
In the event, over the week, it was Quek, animated -- speaking as much through sparkling eyes and gesturing hands intermittently picking at nasi campur -- talking about the value of an international education, the "exciting times" in Malaysia, and how she was looking to returning to be a part of it.
Hijjas, 72, would have been encouraged. Debt, obligation and reciprocation in giving back to the nation had been his message, in a keynote address that he gave in Kuala Lumpur in May to University of Melbourne alumni.
Hijjas, who tells the New Sunday Times he senses a lack of Malaysians today studying overseas engaging with their host communities, might be surprised at the level of Malaysian involvement in university life in Australia.
Kuala Lumpur-born Quek, in the second year of her commerce course, is president of the Melbourne University Overseas Students Service.
At the national level, master's student Eric Pang, also from Kuala Lumpur, is president of the National Liaison Committee for International Students.
Both tell of how readily Malaysians generally mix outside of their comfort zones, coming as they do from Malaysia's multicultural setting, and their facility with the English language. This is contrary to suggestions that might group Malaysians as a rule with recent media coverage of international students keeping to themselves.
Hijjas, Quek and Pang are of one voice in the value of an international education, to individuals personally, and in their contribution in the building up of nations.
As Hijjas shares in Endeavours of Excellence of his time in Australia from 1959 to 1963, his Colombo Plan scholarship gave him "a holistic education, thorough and wholesome. It taught me about life, philosophy and humanity."
That meant more than the internationally renowned architect he has turned out to be, founder of architects Hijjas Kasturi Associates, visiting professor at the University of Adelaide and adjunct professor at University Islam Antarabangsa in Gombak. Hijjas' Adelaide alma mater has conferred on him an honorary doctorate. So too the University of Malaya.
Until Hijjas went overseas, education meant one thing. Coming from a poor family in Singapore, education was to better himself to survive. Studies overseas changed his attitude towards life.
"I had a cultural shock, of course," he says, "but began to appreciate what I was receiving was not only professional education at its best but also ethics, moral values, genuine friendship, theatre, classical music and Australian sports.
"Today, most of our Malaysian students abroad are pressured by their parents and peers to pursue their studies in money-making industries, with the result that we have a wide gap in the intellectual areas. Without philosophy, arts and culture our nation building will be shallow."
In Hijjas' time, students embraced many disciplines in the arts and humanities, music and social sciences. "We must endeavour to achieve a balanced and diversified education," he says.
Vision 2020 aims at achieving a high standard of living with good security and governance.
The education system must be tailored to meet this challenge not only in material pursuits but in intellectual, social and cultural fields as well.
Listening to Quek, education is to shape a well-rounded individual.
The economic aspect of development is the easiest to change.
Exchanges of ideas through education will help keep changes in other social spheres and the environment apace. Technology, the Internet and global communications have made the young more aware and broader in their thinking.
For Pang, 27, doing his second master's at Curtin University in Perth, the most valuable of his experiences is in his interaction not only with Australians but with people from all over the world.
His concern is with the "commodification" of education hurting its holistic and globalising influence. In Australia, international education is a A$12.5 billion (RM36.4 billion) industry.
"Education is a trade," says Pang. He notes the challenge in getting Australians to study overseas. But Pang is encouraged by the Australian Education International's Endeavour Awards programme under which Australians are starting to study in Malaysia.
He believes that programme to have flowed from the Brisbane Communique initiative (http:// tinyurl.com/5w7vte) of Asia-Pacific education ministers in 2006.
As Malaysia joins other nations aspiring to become centres of learning, education as a socialising influence is worthy of note.
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