Japan-US Partnership towards the formation of Asian Higher Education Area focusing on ASEAN

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1 USJI Week (Event 5) Japan-US Partnership towards the formation of Asian Higher Education Area focusing on ASEAN Remarks Kazuhiro Maeshima, Operating Advisor; USJI/Professor, Sophia University Moderator Yuto Kitamura, Associate Professor, The University of Tokyo Speakers Miki Sugimura, Vice President for Academic Exchange, Sophia University Yasushi Hirosato, Professor, Sophia University Commentators Kazuo Kuroda, Professor, Waseda University James Williams, Associate Professor, George Washington University Welcome remarks by Prof. Maeshima Moderator Prof. Kitamura: Europe has created the European Higher Education Area aiming to promote mobility of students and researchers across the region. This session will present how Asia is trying to create the Asian Higher Education Area, and how American and Japanese universities can cooperate and contribute to promote the creation of the Asian Higher Education Area. Funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the research team has been looking at the concept of knowledge diplomacy. The knowledge diplomacy used here is not only looking at the competition and contestation in terms of advancement of technology and science, but also covering wide range of cultural, human and social issues which education has been involved. Speakers Prof. Sugimura: The Significance of Higher Education Network as Cultural and People-to-People Connectivity in East Asia ASEAN proposed an interesting model of People-to-People Connectivity. The ultimate goal of Asian Higher Education scheme is understanding mutual cultural differences, identifying problems beyond borders, and living in harmony among diverse cultures with East Asian Identity. Nowadays, many universities are accelerating their international programs. And with privatization of higher education encourages such trend as well, more and more diversified higher education systems with cross-border programs are able to promote the mobility of student, staff, program and institution. Among the multi-layered networks of higher education in Asia, which are the ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) by SEAMEO-RIHED* and the ASEAN University Network (AUN) in Southeast Asia, Campus Asia by China, Japan and South Korea, and the South Asian

2 Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in South Asia, formed three zones that are competing and cooperating simultaneously. In the case of Southeast Asia, through regional higher education network, ASEAN is trying to set up ASEAN study to raise ASEAN awareness. While promoting the scheme, they also built AUN Quality Assurance and ASEAN Credit Transfer System which are important to harmonizing the institutes. (*SEAMEO-RIHED: the Secretariat of the Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization and its Regional Center for Higher Education and Development) As the functions of the regional higher education network, it 1) offers the opportunities of finding alternative strategies for economic development and human resources development; 2) provides solution to brain drain problem by introducing the concept of brain circulation ; 3) facilitates mobility among students and faculty members over the boundaries and across the region; 4) enables students, faculty members and even people in general to learn and discuss regional issues beyond national boundaries; and 5) creates new academic fields and subjects for international higher education. While focusing in this diversified region, both internationalization and localization have to be considered. Internationalization brings the competitions in human resource development, education hub making, and knowledge based society formation. While localization emphases on nation-building, national integration and local culture protection. Some countries are having more English programs to attract international students. However, for example in Japan, teachers are concerned about how to maintain Japanese characteristics under such circumstance. Similarly, China s education minister released new policy that ban university textbooks which promotes western value. Even though, higher education connectivity has to be carried out, because the role of higher education is to solve regional and global issues. Hope is pinned in international education scheme for the region. Prof. Hirosato: Higher Education Harmonization and Networking in ASEAN/ GMS The harmonization is to make higher education in Southeast Asia more comparable and compatible in and outside the region. It is also the infrastructure to improve quality of human resources and facilitate effective circulation of human resources in the region. However, if the gaps among ASEAN universities are too wide, higher education will not be harmonized easily. Furthermore, harmonization and networking involve interaction among key stakeholders who play the so-called knowledge diplomacy. Harmonizing higher education and strengthening the network are expected to achieve the formation of the Asian Higher Education Area. There are three communities in ASEAN -- ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) and ASEAN Political-Security Community

3 (APSC). Each community has its own blueprint. The biggest challenge faced by ASEAN is to narrow development gaps between original members (high or middle-income countries) and relatively new members (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam: CLMV). If the disparity is further widened, ASEAN would be politically, economically, and socially unstable. AEC will be launched in December 2015, which implies free flow of goods, services, money and (skilled) labor. The challenges derived from AEC would be that 15-20% of the skilled labor force will leave their home countries to seek jobs abroad making the wave of brain drain more serious for CLMV. Around 5-10% of the labor force in CLMV could come from other middle-income ASEAN countries making pressure on the labor market in CLMV more severe. Therefore, increasing flow of students across borders subsequently stimulates the dynamics of workforce in the region. ASEAN leaders took a sub-regional approach in addressing development gaps by launching the GMS economic cooperation program in 1992 with ADB as the coordinator. GMS program encompasses CLMV, Thailand and two provinces of China, constituting an economic block of 250 million people that have a huge capacity for growth. The GMS program comprises nine priority sectors including human resource development that is implementing two regional Technical Assistant (TA) projects by ADB. There are three main activities under the two TA projects: 1) university QA capacity building in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar in collaboration with AUN; 2) pilot and assess the Academic Credit Transfer System Framework for Asia (ACTFA); and 3) GMS university networking through GMS University Consortium. Higher Education Harmonization and Networking in ASEAN should seek to maintain ASEAN uniqueness. For this purpose, the Mosaic Model is raised to present the need of multilayered systems in ASEAN higher education harmonization and networking. However, the challenge is how the multilayered systems can coexist. Thus, it requires a glue function of different platforms in Southeast Asia. The key mechanism and actors for regional cooperation in ASEAN are as followed. ASEAN Summit is the top decision-making body. ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting is the policy-making body. On the ASEAN side are ASEAN secretariat and AUN. On the government side are SEAMEO college -- a policy forum, and RIHED served as secretariat for GMS-University Consortium. The four principles in harmonization and networking are permeability, neutrality, mobility and continuity. Based on the principles, there are two major networks. AUN is established in 1992 and comprising 30 leading universities in ASEAN. AIMS is established in 1993 for building capacity of SEAMEO member countries in the field of policy and planning, administration and management of higher education. AIMS has six member countries including Japan and 61 universities. AIMS suppose to cover all the universities in Southeast Asia.

4 In terms of the current status of higher education harmonization in ASEAN, the two priority areas, Quality Assurance System and Common Credit Transfer System have been established. SEAMEO-RIHED built the Academic Credit Transfer Framework for Asia (ACTFA) containing four components of recognition, credit, grade and information infrastructure. The two credit transfer systems of AUN and AIMS with GMS-UC coexist under ACTFA. As the tool to harmonize higher education networking, one of the objectives for GMS University Consortium is to help improving the quality of universities in GMS by linking the existing and new higher education networks with foreign universities. Without improving the quality of universities, it is impossible to harmonize higher education in the region. Therefore, SEAMEO-RIHED created the GMS University Consortium with support from ADB, which initially includes 22 public universities along GMS economic corridors. As the roles for American and Japanese universities, they can 1) support universities in GMS, especially CLMV through GMS-UC by upgrading the standards to narrow the gaps with universities in East Asia and middle-income countries in ASEAN; 2) collaborate with AUN and SEAMEO-RIHED to implement GMS Higher Education Networking in coordination with ADB; 3) coordinate with EU Support to Higher Education in the ASEAN region (EU-SHARE) in harmonizing qualification framework and quality assurance and credit transfer system; hence 4) contribute to the formation of Asian Higher Education Area as key stakeholders in knowledge diplomacy in higher education. Sophia University established ASEAN Hub Center, which is envisioned to facilitate the development of a more harmonized higher education, by collaborating with key stakeholders such as AUN, SEAMEO Secretariat, UNESCO Bangkok, ADB and other universities. Sophia explores collaboration with US universities especially with the George Washington University, and has reached partnership agreement with UNESCO Bangkok in implementing GMS-UC. Like many universities collaborated between Japan and US, it is the hope to build connection with ASEAN as well. Commentators Prof. Kuroda: 1. ASEAN integration is a different process from European integration. ASEAN is a very diverse area with different ethnic groups, various languages and different economic levels. The diversity has to be tackled in the process of ASEAN integration. In the past six years, I was involved in the discussion on Asian Higher Education Area, which I found that mosaic approach might work better in the region. Multilayered systems have good potential in tackling diversity in higher education in Asia. 2. ASEAN should be always the center for East Asia regionalization in higher education. In late 1990s, China, Japan and Korea had dreamed of establishing an

5 independent collaboration in Northeast Asia, together with Southeast Asia to form a sandwich structure. However, due to the diplomatic relationship between China and Japan, Korea and Japan, it challenged the construction of the sandwich system. After that, we see that ASEAN has great potential in collaboration. If China, Japan and Korea could cooperate with ASEAN, it would be great foundation for forming the Asia Higher Education Area. 3. When I conducted the survey for 300 leading universities in Asia, we found that the leading universities in Asia still look at the universities in North America as cooperative and active partners as much as the universities in their own region. We have to establish a collaborative network between Asia and North American. 4. We need to set the overall goal of higher education collaboration in East Asia for peace, mutual understanding and sustainable development. With the current cross-margin higher education situation, I have presented a new model of flying geese for higher education in East Asia. However, establishing such model would be another challenge. 5. Sophia University established the center in Bangkok. As a growing number of Japanese universities have set up oversea offices, many of them failed to have the real meaning for such activities. However, Sophia University managed to have a clear idea to contribute to Asian regional cooperation in higher education for this new initiative. I also considered USJI as one of such offices that have real goal for university collaboration. Prof. Williams: Picking upon the notion of knowledge diplomacy, as an alternative to other forms of international relations, I suppose that diplomacy often conceived as bilateral, but knowledge diplomacy could be multilateral relationships among countries in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, with North America and Europe. Last year, we are honored to be named as UNESCO Chair in international education for development. There is no better way to begin conversation on how we can join the set of activities working to foster the collaboration among universities. East Asia is the most dynamic economic region in the world. Europe can offer their experience in developing collaboration among universities and harmonization of higher education system. For the US, we can offer a different model of governance and development in contrast to many other systems in the world. The US higher education system is developed independently from the government with quality assurance mechanism. By combining them together, the multilayered systems will be able to serve different purposes in order to avoid the natural tendency of judging one that is better than the other. How to develop one s own capacity while working collaboratively with others? One of the exciting dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals is the emphasis on eliminating disparities. This is one of ASEAN s core challenges that threats its economic development. As the mosaic approach mentioned by Professor Kuroda,

6 could be an effective approach to balance the development of different levels of universities. It is dangerous for countries to put all their effort into developing world-class universities to the exclusion of others, and vise versa. Q&A Q1: As Professor David Chapman at Minnesota University has talked about research capacity of second tier universities in Southeast Asia. How do you see the potential for second tier universities join the research collaboration within ASEAN+3? And how can American universities help to develop such collaboration? Q2. As a student studied Japanese and English in Eastern Europe, and received master degree in Human Development of Science in Japan, I am trying to teach Japanese in the US. However, it often seems that oversea universities are not recognized as equivalent to local universities. How do you think the future of higher education and working anywhere in the world with the recognition of universities from other countries? Q3. Comparing to Europe, Asia especially Southeast Asia has much more cultural diversity. How would you define the effect of cultural diversity having on higher education collaboration? Also, since education is not quiet independent from the governments in Asia countries like China, what would be the effect of government polices on student mobility? Q4. With cultural and linguistic diversity in Asia, students need to learn the local language if they want to study in the country. However, as the Internet is well developed today, people can acquire information via the Internet. How would the Internet change the current situation in education collaboration? Answers Prof. Sugimura: Cultural diversity is not a problem, but rather the uniqueness that each country should provide in making a better program beyond each country s capacity. The difficult point is political difference. In order to build a qualification framework, it requires compromising each country s national interest and national policy. Prof. Hirosato: Regarding to the question on research capacity, there are programs and funding at the country-level for capacity building in CLMV where research capacity is extremely low. At the regional level, there is a project called AUN seat Net supported by Japan International Cooperation Agency, which is using regional networking approach to develop research capacity in countries like CLMV. It is necessary to cooperate between country-level and regional level in strengthening research capacity. However, some middle-income countries are also struggling to get out of the so-called middle-income trap. Balancing the levels of different countries status is important.

7 Prof. Kuroda: We are observing a growing number of frameworks across borders. Such trend is significant for the field of higher education. Diversity is a challenge, as well as an opportunity for collaboration. European countries came up with the idea of regionalization because they historically shared commons. In the contrary, the cultural diversity is the identity for Asia. We should embrace the diversity rather than tackle it. There will be a different version of regionalization in Asia. Prof. Williams: People get more than just information through study abroad. Most of the countries act differently than the others. It is useful to understand how the rest of the world is thinking. The experience of being in a place where people understand things differently cannot be gained through the Internet. Prof. Sugimura: One of the purposes for USJI is to propose policy recommendations. To consider how we can exchange opinions through channels between US and Asian countries, it would be interesting to build a data/research cluster to share information. SEAMO-RIHED is building such data platform for sharing information on higher education among the countries in the region. Prof. Kitamura: The diversity is the key word in Asia. We hope to share our diversity with American colleges through the initiative promoted by USJI. Japanese universities faculties appreciate and enjoy academic freedom and autonomy, which is very rare in the context of Asia. Japan learned it from the US and Europe. That s why Japanese scholars are dedicated to play the role along with American colleges in developing the Asian Higher Education Area.

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES LOOKING FORWARD WITH CONFIDENCE PRAGUE DECLARATION 2009

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES LOOKING FORWARD WITH CONFIDENCE PRAGUE DECLARATION 2009 Copyright 2009 by the European University Association All rights reserved. This information may be freely used and copied for