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Human
Resource Development (HRM-627)
VU
Lesson
44
MOBILIZING
REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES:
THE
ASEAN UNIVERSITY NETWORK, A
CASE STUDY
The
ASEAN University Network (AUN)
was
founded in November 1995 by
ASEAN member
countries
including
13 universities. After the enlargement of
ASEAN by the ASEAN Charter in
1997 and 1999, the
AUN
membership increased to 20 member
universities (with the extension of 2
universities from Myanmar,
one
from Laos , and Malaysia
and one from Cambodia
also two from
Indonesia.)
The
ASEAN University Network is an
arrangement between 20 universities in
the ten ASEAN countries.
The
AUN
is composed of a Board of Trustees (BOT),
the participating universities, and the
AUN Secretariat. The
Board
of Trustees consists of one
representative from each of the
ASEAN Member Countries, the
Secretary-
General
of ASEAN, the Chairman of the ASEAN
subcommittee on Education (ASCOE)
and the Executive
Director
of the AUN. The BOT has the
task of formulating policies,
approving project proposals,
the
allocation
of budgets and coordinating
implementation activities. The board
makes decisions on these
activities
on
the basis of consensus. The
participating universities have the
task of implementing the AUN
programmes
and
activities. When AUN was
founded in 1995, it consisted of
thirteen universities from
seven countries. Due
to
the inclusion of Myanmar, Laos and
Cambodia in ASEAN, the network
grew to 20 members (for a
list of
the
members, see appendix I). Although
numerous applications for membership
have been received, it
was
decided
to only admit universities from the
new member countries. Non
members from the region however,
are
invited as observers on a regular
basis. The AUN Secretariat is
involved in the planning,
organisation,
monitoring
and evaluation of AUN activities and also
in the development of new ideas and the
acquisition of
funding.
The permanent office of the
Secretariat has been
established in 2000 and is
located on the campus of
Chulalongkorn
University in Bangkok. The operating
costs of the secretariat are
(at least until 2005)
allocated
by
the Thai Government.
The
financing of AUN activities comes from
either cost sharing between the
participating universities or
from
the
external `dialogue partners' of ASEAN.
The dialogue partners are
the EU, China, South Korea,
Japan, India
and
Russia. The meetings within
the AUN Framework are financed by the hosts
and travel expenses by the
(universities
of the) participants, or by universities from the
richer countries for the poorer
countries.
Objectives
& Activities
The
main objective of the AUN is to strengthen the
existing network of cooperation among
universities in
ASEAN
by promoting collaborative studies and
research programmes. Furthermore, the AUN
attempts to
promote
cooperation and solidarity among
scientists and scholars in the region
and to develop academic
and
professional
human resources as well as to
produce and disseminate scientific
knowledge and information
among
the universities in the region.
In
order to realise these
objectives, a wide range of activities
have been organized within
the AUN framework.
The
initiative for AUN activities can be
located with different
actors. Member universities
can request to put a
particular
activity on the agenda. Also
initiatives can be proposed by the AUN
Secretariat or by the ASEAN
Secretariat.
Finally, the Dialogue Partners
can initiate activities. The
Board of Trustees decides on the
actual
initiation
of the proposed activities. In the course of
its existence, the BOT has
agreed upon a variety of
activities
which are both very diverse
in content as well as in ambition and
feasibility. In the early stages
of
AUN's
existence, activities were largely
focused on four priority
areas: student and faculty
exchanges, ASEAN
Studies,
collaborative research and information
networking. After the establishment of
the permanent AUN
secretariat,
various other activities emerged,
both within the region as well as
with the dialogue
partners.
The
ASEAN Studies Programme has
been one of the instruments to
realise a regional awareness and
identity.
The
objective is to realise an ASEAN Studies
curriculum for all member
universities in order to
provide
students
with knowledge about societies, economies
and politics in the ASEAN
countries. As a start, in
1998
an
ASEAN Source Book was
compiled with a bibliography on a wide
range of ASEAN subjects. On the
basis
of
the source book and after
several joint workshops, six
core courses were identified
and course syllabi for
the
postgraduate
level were compiled. At a later stage,
all course information was
placed on the `ASEAN
Virtual
University'
web-site (http://aunvirtualu.dlsu.edu.ph/).
This virtual university should ultimately
evolve into a
joint
degree granting programme for
ASEAN Studies.
The
student and faculty exchange
programme contains three
separate activities: the AUN Educational
Forum,
the
Distinguished Professors Programme and
the Student Exchange Programme.
The annual
educational
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Human
Resource Development (HRM-627)
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forum
covers a two week gathering of
both students and staff of
member universities. In this period,
lectures
and
presentations are given on a particular
theme and also several
cultural activities are organised. The
first
educational
forum has been held in 1998
with around 25 participants.
Participation has gradually
increased and
for
the 2003 forum, 50 participants are
expected. Financially, the educational
forum is based on the principle
of
cost
sharing where the host
arranges the activities and accommodation
and the students or their
universities
pay
for transport expenses. In addition to
the educational forum there is
also a student exchange
programme.
In
fact, structural student exchange
was the option preferred at a meeting of
Vice Rectors for Student
Affairs in
1997.
However, the rather rigid curricula of
the member universities, with
limited space for optional
courses,
and
very diverse academic calendars,
only left a two week
period per year for
joint activities. This was
why the
option
of the educational forum was
proposed.
Student
exchange now takes place on
a more ad hoc basis and is
only offered by limited number of
universities.
In
2003, scholarships for
students (and staff) of member
universities are offered by the
member universities
from
Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand
and the Philippines. The obstacles
observed above,
inflexible
curricula
and differences in academic
calendars; pose problems for
exchange, but also the
differences in
educational
systems and the medium of
instruction, which is often the native
language of the university
concerned.
Another problem is that, due to the
uneven level of development in the ASEAN
countries,
exchange
is frequently a one-way activity,
with more advanced
educational systems like
Malaysia and
Singapore
functioning
as a recipient of students and staff from
other countries. Also,
structural exchange programmes
or
scholarship
programmes have not yet
materialised because of financial reasons
due to the financial crisis of
1997/1998.
The
third activity related to
exchange is the Distinguished Professors
Programme. This programme
provides
opportunities
for faculty members to visit
other member universities.
The participating professors give
lectures,
advise
students and get involved in
collaborative development of courses or teaching
materials at their
host
university.
The exchange is financially supported by
the ASEAN Secretariat or the ASEAN
Foundation and in
some
cases it is based on cost
sharing between the host university and
the visiting professors' university.
Until
the
end of 2002, some forty
visits had taken place. In
the field of collaborative research,
initiatives emerged
already
in a workshop in 1997, but
have not yet materialised
sufficiently. At present, the main
progress in this
field
has been through the
collection of research data of the
participating universities and
compiling
institutional
profiles in the field of research.
These activities have not
yet led to concrete matching of
research
areas
for possible cooperation within
AUN.
The
AUN has also started to
target other groups than
traditional students. In the ASEAN
executive
development
programme, the AUN aims to train
professionals from business
and management. Due to
the
1997
financial crisis, this programme
was postponed but at a later stage, the
Asian crisis was used as
an
opportunity
by AUN. In 1999, the network planned a
two-week executive programme that
focused both on
the
provision of tools to handle the
consequences of the crisis and to
prepare the business community for
the
further
economic integration in the region and
the ASEAN Free Trade Area.
Even though the deans of
the
Business
Schools concerned met twice,
the programme has not yet
materialised. Pre-occupation with
the
repercussions
of the financial crisis is seen as the
main reason for the fact
that the programme has not
yet been
realised.
Another activity in the field of
Business Administration is the AGBEP
Programme (ASEAN Graduate
Business/Economics
Programme), which aims at
student and staff exchange
and research cooperation on
business
and economic issues in the region.
Cooperation within AGBEP,
based at Gajah Mada University
has
led
to student exchanges on a small
scale and to symposia and
joint publications since its
establishment in 2000.
Many
of the activities above are of a disciplinary
nature and mainly aimed at
exchange and joint
curriculum
development.
A more recent and profound
initiative is the AUN Quality Assurance,
which has the aim of
promoting
the development of a common quality assurance
system. On the long term this should
function as
an
instrument for the improvement of
teaching, research institutional
academic standards of AUN
member
universities
while recognising and
respecting the differences among
member universities. The ultimate
goal of
this
initiative is the harmonisation of educational
systems and standards of
universities in ASEAN. The
first
step
of this initiative was a workshop held in
2000 at Chulalongkorn University
and which has led to
the
Bangkok
Accord. In the framework of this document, a
Chief Quality Officer (CQO)
has been appointed by
each
member university to coordinate the implementation.
The CQO's meet twice a year
at one of the member
universities.
Currently this priority AUN activity is
primarily based on the sharing of
information and the
creation
of `minimal standards' (which still can
be considered high standards
for some of the
member
universities).
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Another
activity that crosses disciplinary
boundaries is the cooperation on new
technologies. The
programme
focuses
on the establishment and development of
systems for information
exchange between the
member
universities.
The first phase of this
programme was mainly the development of an AUN
homepage through
which
all member universities were
linked. The second phase
comprises the further development of
the
concept
of an ASEAN virtual university and is led
by De La Salle University (Philippines).
The programme is
being
gradually developed and the first
recommendations of AUN experts in the
field have been integrated
in
the
ASEAN Studies Programme (see
above). In the future, further
technological cooperation in library
services
and
standardisation of formats for
information dissemination are planned to
be developed.
In
addition to the activities that have
been developed and carried
out by the member universities, the AUN
also
developed
activities in cooperation with its
`dialogue partners', namely the European
Union, South Korea,
Japan,
India, China and Russia.
With the European Union, two
joint activities have been
set up. The most
recent
is the ASEAN-European Engineering Exchange.
This programme aims to
promote the exchange of
students
and staff between the European Union
and ASEAN through study,
research and internships. At
present
however, this programme is very modest in
numbers. A more comprehensive
project is the ASEAN-
EU
University Network Programme
(AUNP). AUNP both promotes
cooperation between higher education
in
the
two regions and a further
regional integration in the ASEAN region.
The AUNP consists of two
major
projects:
partnership projects and network
initiatives. Under the partnership projects,
two calls for
proposals
were
launched by the European Commission in
2002 and in 2003 in order to
improve cooperation between
higher
education institutions in EU Member
States and ASEAN, as well as
to stimulate collaboration in
higher
education
within ASEAN. The types of
projects that are eligible
for funding in this framework are
cooperation
in
applied research, in human resource
development and in curriculum development. Activities
that fall under
the
so-called network initiatives
are the organisation of two rector
conferences and four annual
round tables for
representatives
of ASEAN and EU higher education
institutions and relevant public
authorities, which will
focus
on the further development of EUASEAN higher
education cooperation. Another activity
eligible is the
sharing
of knowledge between the two regions on
issues like credit transfer
systems, initiatives for
student and
lecturer
mobility, initiatives promoting
joint research, and
convergence of curricula. The
AUNP programme is
managed
by the Programme Management Office,
with a European and an ASEAN co-director,
which is based
in
Bangkok. The total budget for the
programme is almost eight million
Euros, of which around 90 % comes
from
the EU and 10 % from AUN. At the time of
writing, the proposals are under
evaluation.
Links
with South Korea emerged
from the interest that the
Korean Association of Southeast Asia
Studies
(KASEAS)
expressed to work together with the
AUN. The cooperation between AUN
and KASEAS led to a
conference
in 1999, which again
resulted in two publications jointly
produced by South Korean and
ASEAN
scholars.
In 2001 a second programme
was proposed by KASEAS, which
was approved in early 2002 by
the
ASEAN
Secretariat and resulted in a
workshop and a conference in
that same year. The
second part of the
2001
Academic Exchange Programme is in
progress and entails a joint
research project, and a
fellowship
exchange
scheme. Another South
Korea-ASEAN activity was
initiated by the Korean Science
and Engineering
Foundation
(KOSEF) and focuses on the post-doctoral
level. The ASEAN Post-Doctoral
Fellowship
Programme
promotes cooperation in science and
technology within the ASEAN region by
providing ASEAN
scientists
opportunities for research
exchanges with South Korea. The
programme provides research
scholarships
for 11 ASEAN scientists or
researchers for a period of
6-24 months in Korea. The preparation
for
scholarships
for a two-year stay in Korea
for a new batch of 10 Ph.D.
holders is in preparation. Recently, also
a
scheme
has started for regular
students. This scheme funds ten ASEAN
students to study for one or
two
semesters
in Daejoen University in South Korea.
Cooperation
with Japan is based on two
projects. The first is based
on the sharing of experiences and
has been
set
up by the Keizai Koho Centre. For this
programme, a group of educators
from ASEAN visited
Japanese
universities
and governmental and private organisation
in Japan. These `educational
trips' were organised
annually
from 1998 until 2000. A
more substantive project is the
AUN/Southeast Asian Engineering
Education
Development Network (AUN/SEED-Net), an
initiative of the Japanese Government.
This network
is
aimed at promoting both
Japan-ASEAN cooperation in engineering education as
well as the internal
ASEAN
cooperation.
Activities under this network are in the
field of research, graduate education
(both short courses
and
full Masters programmes) and
the exchange of staff and students. This
sub-network network was
established
in 2001 and currently consists of
nineteen universities from both
Japan and the ASEAN
region
(mainly,
but not exclusively, members
of AUN).
Collaborative
activities with India are mainly in the
sphere of human resource development.
The ASEAN-India
joint
HRD collaboration initiative
will also function as a
coordination mechanism for the
various ongoing
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institutional
and bilateral collaborative activities in the
HRD domain, in order to bring
these activities under a
broader
regional framework.
The
ASEAN China Academic
Cooperation and Exchange
Programme was initiated by a
joint effort of the
AUN
and the Ministry of Education of the
People's Republic of China in 2001. The
activities under this
programme
include the ASEAN-China Rectors
conference, grants for joint
research and training and
an
exchange
programme for academics in
order to strengthen the network
between ASEAN and Chinese
scholars.
Recently,
AUN has also proposed activities
for a further cooperation with
Russia. At present these
activities are
in
the stage of seeking funding
for collaborative activities.
Development
The
ASEAN University Network
emerged from a highly ambitious
idea of the ASEAN leaders
and the
ASEAN
Subcommittee on Education (ASCOE) to
establish an ASEAN University. A
year after this idea
was
launched;
it became clear that this
would present too many
problems concerning funding,
location and
leadership.
Therefore, in 1994, it was decided
that the founding of a network of
existing institutions would be
more
feasible. In its early years
(1995-1999), the AUN focused mainly on the
sharing of knowledge and
experiences
and on small-scale student
and staff exchange. As from
1999, the collaborative activities
became
more
complex with programmes like
joint curriculum development, cooperation in ICT
and the establishment
of
sub-networks. This is not only the
case for intra-ASEAN cooperation
but also for the activities
with the
dialogue
partners.
This
also led to the establishment of a
permanent secretariat in Bangkok in March
2000. Although there
existed
a
secretariat since 1997, this
secretariat was temporary. With the
permanent office also came
an increase in
structural
funding for the secretariat. In
addition to the operating costs for the
AUN secretariat, also the
financial
support for AUN activities increased
substantially since 1999. In
addition to a growth in financial
terms,
projects also became more
comprehensive. In particular, the AUN Quality
Assurance programme
has
very
ambitious goals with consequences
that transcend the disciplinary
boundaries. This can also
form a
turning
point in the sense that
through such projects all
members of the participating universities
will be
affected.
Many of the current activities are
focused on particular individuals of the
universities, and many
other
students
and staff that are not
involved in activities are not
familiar with AUN and its
activities. Most
exchanges
and gatherings for instance,
although successful, have
been modest in its impact on
the universities
as
a whole. An explanation for this lies in the
top-down character of the activities,
with a high involvement
of
the
university's central level (and in some
countries the ministry level) and
only modest involvement of
the
faculties.
Source:
Beerkens, H.J.J.G. (2004) Global
Opportunities and Institutional
Embeddedness; Higher
Education
Consortia
in Europe and Southeast Asia
(PhD Dissertation). Enschede: Cheps/UT.
Available at:
http://www.beerkens.info/files/phd.pdf
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASEAN_University_Network
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