Toward the quality assurance of“collaborative” educational programs acrossboarders: experiences from the ”CAMPUSAsia” monitoring project and perspectives

beyond (a personal observation)

Syun Tutiya

National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation

September 27, 2013at FuJen

September 27, 2013 1/17

Plan

1. BackgroundsI HistoricalI GeographicalI Policies

2. “CAMPUS Asia” and the “monitoring” thereofI What it isI How QA is involvedI What’s being doneI Some experiences

3. Beyond

3.1 “Joint” monitoring of CJK programs3.2 Degree programs?3.3 Beyond CJK, ie. ASEAN+CJK

September 27, 2013 2/17

Backgrounds, historically and geographically

I Primarily domestic “industry” with respect to studentconstituion, around 130,000 enrollment out of 3 million,obviously below the OECD average

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Student Constituion

I Primarily domestic “industry” again with respect tofaculty constituion, incredibly so given Japan’s role inSTM research worldwide

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Faculty Constitution

I International students are between 4 and 5 % of thetotal enrollment, with more than 90% from Asiancountries

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Incoming students

I Few Japanese students don’t go out and don’t want to,apparently

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Students abroad

September 27, 2013 3/17

(Create by MEXT from OECD “Education at a Glance2010”)

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BACK

September 27, 2013 4/17

(Create by MEXT from OECD “Education at a Glance2010”)

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BACK

September 27, 2013 5/17

(Create by MEXT from JASSO’s reports)

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BACK

September 27, 2013 6/17

(Create by MEXT from OECD “Education at a Glance2010” and other sources )

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BACK

September 27, 2013 7/17

Policy changes observed

I Formerly, funds for moving students inwards andourwards, which is still dominantly fiscally

I Shift to or new direction in funding awarded touniversities to strengthen the infrastructure

I Further move forward to internationally “collaborative”projects

I “International” in former times meant “Western” butnow it means “Asia”

I Can’t deny the bureaucratic mindset, but money is real

I And the perhaps innocent mention of “quality”language, and here comes NIAD-UE

September 27, 2013 8/17

MEXT’s ways of “Internationalization”

1. Project for Promotion of Global Human ResourceDevelopment

“to overcome the Japanese younger generation’s ’inwardtendency’ and to foster human resources who canpositively meet the challenges and succeed in the globalfield, ...”

2. Global 30 Project: Establishing University Network forInternationalization

“to promote internationalization of academicenvironment of Japanese universities and acceptance ofexcellent international students studying in Japan”

3. Re-inventing Japan

“to foster human resources capable of being globallyactive, and to assure the quality of mechanisms for themutual recognition of credits and grade managementthrough an international framework, ...”

4. Support for two-way exchange programs, which isrelatively big secure portion for exchange students

September 27, 2013 9/17

CAMPUS Asia, CJK

I Former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ’s proposal in2009 to enhance university exchange with QA in EastAsia

I Japan-China-Korea summit (October 2009 in Beijing)I ASEAN+3 and EAS summit (October 2009 in Cha-am

Hua Hin)

I 10 consortial, joint CJK programs currently, with the Uof Tokyo, TIT, Hitotsubashi, GRIPS, Nagoya U, TohokuU, Kobe U, Okayama U, Kyushu U and Ritsumeikan U,starting in 2011

I Now in their third year

September 27, 2013 10/17

CAMPUS Asia, currently

I Under the “Re-inventing Japan” Project

Type I: “Formation of a consortium among universitiesin Japan and ASEAN for implementing exchangeprograms with the assurance of credit transfers andgrade management”Type II: “SEND program: Student Exchange - NipponDiscovery”

I In the Type I category, nine programs were selected outof 54 proposals for the year 2012, with Hokkaido U,The U of Tokyo, Tokyo Medical and Dental U, KyotoU, Kobe, U & Osaka U, Ehime U, Kagawa U, Kochi U,Kyushu U, Waseda U, Keio U and Meiji U

I For the year 2013, selection is ongoing, with specialemphasis on AIMS-participating universities

September 27, 2013 11/17

Current approaches in the CJK context

I As said, “quality assurance” is included in the wholeconcept

I We knew it is a challenge, a totally new thingI Launch of Japan-China-Korea Quality Assurance

Council, withI NIAD-UE(Japan): National Institution for Academic

Degrees and University EvaluationI HEEC(China): Higher Education Evaluation Center of

the Ministry of EducationI KCUE(Korea): Korean Council for University Education

I Three target activitiesI Mutual understanding of each county ’s QA systemI Monitoring of‘ CAMPUS Asia ’pilot program for

elaborating a joint guideline for QA of transnationalprograms

I Staff/Experts Exchange

September 27, 2013 12/17

With reference to

I ENQA(2005), TEEP II project

I ECA(2008-10), TAEM II Project

I ECA(2007), Principles for accreditation proceduresregarding joint programmes

I Netherlands NVAO, Framework for the assessment ofinternationalisation as a distinctive (quality) feature

I European Commission: ERASMUS MUNDUS QualityAssessment Project(2009), Quality Handbook

September 27, 2013 13/17

Challenges that led to the “monitoring” idea, an empiricistapproach

I The three countries have been mainly concerned withinstitutional as opposed to program QA, while all the“collaborative” programs are program-based, viz.,specific group of students

I Participationg higher education institutions, and henceperhaps constituting programs also, are already qualityassured in each country’s system, and actually are“elite” institutions, what is the added(?) quality to beassured?

I There are language barriers, which is a challege notonly for the program design of each consortium, but forquality assurance entities. Japanese, Chinese andKorean are different languages and higher education ineach country have an established tradition of usingthose languages. Using English is not a solution.

September 27, 2013 14/17

CAMPUS Asia Monitoring

I The monitoring project willI identify good practices from the aspect of the quality of

educationI disseminate them broadly to higher education

community by way of symposia, guidelines etc

I Now we are doing the First Monitoring in each countryindependently, with different sets of starndards andcriteria, though with mutual recognition of thestandards.

I The second council meeting in August, 2013, whichconfirmed its progress and set up concrete agenda forthe rest of the term

September 27, 2013 15/17

Some personal observations from someone not on the team

I There are no “degree” level programs in the sense thatthe participating institutions jointly award degrees,hence “collaborative” at most, though should there besuch, what could it be?

I Actively involved faculty and international educationspecialists on the monitoring team might have differentviews of the situation, eg. about credit transfer andhours spent studying

I “Supervision of research” in postgraduate programs,which, though, are prevalent, is a grey area

I Faculty-level communication and trust make difference

I Troubles come from money, though money makes thisproject possible: To move, you need money

September 27, 2013 16/17

What’s to come next?

I “Joint” monitoring of CJK programsI Challeges will remainI Mutual observation has started

I Degree programs?I Beyond CJK area-wise, ie. ASEAN+CJK, from Japan’s

point of view, as represented by the current call forproposals

I A “jamming” or “concentration” situation, withdifferent Japanese universities talking to a small set ofASEAN universities

I CJK were three countries, but ASEAN is already anetwork

I Most ASEAN countries have the idea of program-levelaccreditaton while Japan does not

I More communication and sharing is necessary

September 27, 2013 17/17