CROSS-BORDER EDUCATION IN
ASEAN COUNTRIES
7th CRISU-CUPT Conference
Challenges of ASEAN Higher Education in Globalized World
Dr. Libing Wang
APEID Coordinator & Senior Programme Specialist in Higher Education
UNESCO Bangkok
Contents
I.
II.
Trends of Regional Integration
Education Harmonization in ASEAN
Countries
III. Cross-border Higher Education
IV. UNESCO’s Work
V. Concluding Remarks
Part 1
Trends of Regional Integration
1.1 Regional Integration for Peace and
Development



Regional integration (RI) is the high level of
international cooperation, covering all aspects of
social life, including education
Lessons from the two World Wars suggest that war
comes from clear separation and narrow conception
of nation state and exclusive pursuit of the so-called
national interests
RI is an important way to achieve peace and
development in a region
1.2 Story of European Integration

The integration process in Europe started with the
establishment of three supranational institutions
- European Coal and Steel Community (1951-2002)
- European Economic Community (1958-)
- European Atomic Energy Community (1958-)
Make war not only unthinkable but materially
impossible - Robert Shuman, ECSC advocator and
then French Foreign Minister
European Integration (Cont’d)
Source: Wiki ????
European Integration (Cont’d)


RI is a multi-facet process with harmonization in
different social and economic aspects supplementing
each other to achieve the overall goal of peace and
development
Integration and harmonization should be based on
consensus among member states, and should not be at
the expenses of national traditions and identities
Unity within diversity
1.3 Emerging ASEAN Integration

Aims of ASEAN
- Accelerating economic growth, social
progress, cultural development among
its members
- Protecting regional peace and
stability
- Providing opportunities for member
countries to discuss differences
peacefully
Source:
Emerging ASEAN Integration (Con’td)






Bali Summit (1976), economic corporation
The Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT, 1992),
ASEAN Free Trade Area
Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Treaty
(1995)
Agreements and partnerships in environment,
democracy, investment, and trade in services
ASEAN Charter (2008) with the aim of moving closer
to “an EU-style Community”
ASEAN Community by 2015. Three pillars including
AEC, APSC, and ASCC
Source:
4. Implications for HE
More active roles of education/HE as grounds
of economic integrations
 Education as a determinant of human
development
 HE as one of possible ways to facilitate mutual
understanding and/or to nurture next
generations with regional identity, etc.

Part 2
Educational Harmonization
in ASEAN Countries
2-1 Efforts towards Int’l Cooperation in
ASEAN and beyond
ASEAN adopted the Vision 2020 in 1998 to present ideal state of
regional cooperation in various area of politics, economy, culture, etc.

Discussion at ASEAN Education Ministers Meetings
•
•
At the1st Meeting in 2006 building of ASEAN social and cultural
community awareness and education quality for national
development were discussed
At the 2nd Meeting in 2007 discussed the fostering of ASEAN citizens,
the importance of cultivating ASEAN identity and education, the
continuation of the ASEAN Student Exchange Programme, the
formation of high school networks on science and math, educational
cooperation with participating nations of the East Asian Summit,
cooperation with SEAMEO, fortifications of the AUN and the
promotion of “ASEANness” among students
Source: Miki Sugimura (2012), Possibility of East Asian integration through the regional networks
and universities’ cooperation in higher education
ASEAN ED Ministers Meeting and
Other Regional Networks

ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting (Cont’d)
•

At 3rd meeting in 2008 agreement was reached on progressing
regional networks in HE, further strengthening the relationships
between ASEAN and SEAMEO
Multi-layered nature of regional networks
•
•
e.g. ASEAN, SEAMEO RIHED, AUN (ASEAN University
Network) and AUN SEED-Net, etc.
Mutually intimate and overlapping networks supporting
regional cooperation
Source: Miki Sugimura (2012)
Activities of Regional Networks in the
Field of HE in ASEAN and Beyond

Regional education harmonization tools
Student Exchange
Programs
Credit Transfer
System
Quality Assurance
Guidelines
M-I-T Program (AIMS) and other
exchange programs
ASEAN Credit Transfer System (ACTS),
UCTS, etc.
AUN-AQ Guideline, UNESCO-APQN
Toolkit: Regulating the Quality of Crossborder Education, etc.
ASEAN Framework Agreement on
Trade in Services (AFAS)

AFAS adopted in Bangkok in 1995, resulting in commitments in
service sectors liberalization after 6 rounds of negotiations
Limitation on
market access
Cross-border
supply
Consumption
abroad
Commercial
presence
Presence of natural
persons
Cambodia
None
None
None
Unbound, except as indicated
in the horizontal section
Myanmar
None
None
As indicated in the horizontal commitments
Brunei
None
None
Only through a joint
venture with foreign
equity not exceeding 49%
Unbound, except as indicated
in the horizontal section
Indonesia
None
None
As indicated in the
horizontal commitments
Unbound, except as indicated in
the horizontal section
Lao PDR
None
None
As indicated in the
horizontal commitments
Unbound, except as indicated in
the horizontal section
Thailand
None
None
At least half of its
director(s), and if applicable
its managing director, must
be the person of Thai
nationality
Unbound
Part 3
Cross-border Higher Education
3.1 Internationalization of HE: Student
Mobility in the World
Number of Tertiary Students studying abroad in 1999 and 2007
1999
2007
Number of outbound mobile students (1000)
900
808
800
700
600
500
406
400
318
300
200
100
94
97
64
56
100
444
250
247
218
194
168
421
199
135
121
185
101
0
North
America
Central Asia
Arab States Sub-Saharan South and
Latin
West Asia
Africa
America and
the
Caribbean
Central and
Eastern
Europe
Western
Europe
East Asia
and the
Pacific
unknown
Source: UNESCO-UIS (2009), Global Education Digest 2009
17
Student Mobility in the Asia-Pacific
Major 15 sending countries account for 44% of the world’s mobile students
Largest outflow: China(421K), India(153K) and Korea(105K)
Source: UNESCO-UIS (2009), Global Education Digest 2009
18
Flowing out more than flowing in
19
Region of origin, 1977 and 2007 and distribution of the destination of mobile
students by their region
Share of mobile
students
Studying within
their region of
origin
Share of mobile
students
Studying outside
their region of
origin
19
Increasing Mobile Students within the Region
Source: UNESCO-UIS (2009), Global Education Digest 2009
Composition of study destination by students’ region of origin, 2007
20
Students flow in 1997 and 2007 Between
ASEAN, China, Japan and Korea
Source: Kazuo Kuroda (2010)
21
3.2 Programme Mobility in the AP

Franchise


Twinning


e.g. “2+1 Programme” in many of the private colleges in Malaysia and “2+2
Programme” in Korea
Double or joint degrees


e.g. “London External Degrees” in many countries, “Stanford Executive MBA”
in Singapore
e.g. many MBA degrees in private universities in Malaysia
E-learning or distance learning

e.g. “U21 Global” by Universitas 21
22
3.3 Provider/Institution Mobility in the AP






Branch campuses
Provider in country A establishes a satellite campus in country B
to deliver courses and programs to mainly local students in
country B / qualification awarded is from provider in country A
E.g. Monash University in Malaysia, RMIT University in Vietnam,
Nottingham University in China
Independent institution
Foreign provider A (a traditional university, a network or
commercial company) establishes in country B a stand-alone
HEI to offer courses/ programmes and awards
E.g. Bright University in Cambodia
23
3.4. Challenges
Very diverse education systems in this region
How to harmonize different systems not compromising
diversity?
 Lack of trust and/or information-sharing among countries
and institutions
How to promote information-sharing and to build trust by
establishing QA systems and other recognition tools?
 Students tend to destine to English-speaking/western
countries. Not so many interested in further studying within
this region though this trend is changing slowly
How to facilitate mobility within ASEAN countries?

Part 4
UNESCO’s Work
UNESCO’s Work

Standards Setting
 UNESCO-OECD
guideline on the provision of CBE
 Convention on the recognition of HE qualifications

Capacity Building


Clearing house: Filling the knowledge gap


Workshops to raise awareness of Regional Convention etc.
ERI-net (Educational Research Institute Networking in the AP)
established by UNESCO BKK in 2009
International cooperation
26
Standards Setting in Cross-border HE
27

UNESCO-OECD Guidelines on Quality Provision of Cross-border
Education (2005)
 Voluntary and non-binding document
 Guidelines for governments, HE institutions, student bodies, quality
assurance and accreditation bodies, and academic recognition
bodies
Objectives
 ‘Students/learners protection’ from the risks of misinformation, low-quality
provision and qualifications of limited validity
 Qualifications should be readable and transparent in order to increase their
international validity and portability. Reliable and user-friendly information sources
should facilitate this
 Recognition procedures should be transparent, coherent, fair and reliable and
impose as little burden as possible to mobile professionals
 National quality assurance and accreditation agencies need to intensify their
international cooperation in order to increase mutual understanding
Standards Setting (Cont’d)
28

UNESCO-APQN Toolkit: Regulating the Quality of Crossborder Education (2006)
UNESCO Bangkok cooperated with Asia-Pacific Quality Network
(APQN) to support the implementation of UNESCO/OECD
guidelines
 A reference tool to assist governments and policy makers in the
development of regulatory frameworks for quality assurance in
cross-border education
 Partnerships and dialogue between sending and receiving countries
emphasized

http://www2.unescobkk.org/elib/publications/087/APQN_Toolkit.pdf
UNESCO Regional Conventions
29

UNESCO Regional Conventions on the Recognition of
Academic Qualifications in Higher Education
•
5 regional + 1 inter-regional: Asia-Pacific, Africa, Arab States,
Latin America, Europe and North America, Mediterranean
•

The only legally binding instrument in the world
Revision of Asia-Pacific Regional Convention
Current Regional Convention adopted in 1983 and 21 states
ratified to date
 Revision to address challenges such as new modes of HE and
increasing cross-border education, with need for consideration
of quality assurance, etc. (Working Group meetings since 2005)

State Parties to 1983 AP Convention
30
The Revised Convention
 Revised
AP Convention adopted in the International
Conference of States held in Tokyo, Japan in Nov 2011
Main changes includes:
 Competent recognition authorities;
 Basic principles related to assessment of qualifications;
 Partial studies;
 Recognition of qualifications held by refugees, displaced
persons, and persons in similar situation;
 And implementation mechanisms etc.
31
Follow-ups to Revised AP Convention and
Discussion on a Global Convention (GC)
32

11th Asia-Pacific Regional Committee meeting in conjunction with
expert seminar on National Information Center (Seoul, May 2012)



To facilitate dialogue among Member States and to discuss follow-up actions
related to the revised AP Convention
Decided to establish AP Working Group and to revitalize the Asia-Pacific
Academic Recognition Network (APARNET, http://www.aparnet.org)
1st Regional Expert Meeting on the Feasibility of a Global
Convention (China, Oct 2012)


Possibility of the GC raised at Conference in Tokyo in 2011
Regional experts to discuss the feasibilities of GC based on the comments
from the regions
Clearinghouse: Filling the knowledge Gap
33

Educational Research Institute Network in Asia-Pacific (ERINet) since 2009



Established & managed by UNESCO BKK to facilitate regional
collaboration in conducting analytical work pertinent to the region
17 institutions from 15 countries and economies participate
Regional seminars to share research findings



The Impact of Economic Crisis on HE and the Use of ICT in HE (2010)
International Student Mobility (2011)
Public-private partnerships in HE & TVET and Youth Employment (2012)
For more information :
http://www.unescobkk.org/education/epr/eprpartnerships/eri-net/
Part 5
Concluding Remarks

It may be time to think about harmonization
of higher education systems in ASEAN
countries as there are mounting increase of
students and academic mobility in this region.
The adoption of the A-P revised regional
convention can serve as important platform for
regional cooperation.

The convention mainly focuses on academic
recognition for further studies and employment
opportunities. Recognition of professional
qualifications remains untouched and will be
subject to separate efforts in which UNESCO
can also have a role to play with the
collaboration of member states and
professional bodies.

Information-based comparison is the main
principle for academic recognition. Policymakers, practitioners, and researchers can
work together to provide reliable, transparent,
and comparable information for the purpose
of academic recognition.

The nature of quality assurance mechanisms
is very important for the promotion of mutual
trusts between different countries. More efforts
should be made to work out a common quality
assurance framework in Asia and the Pacific, so
that the convention can attract the participation
of more member states in this region.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!
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