UP Forum May-June 2014

ASEAN2015HIGHER EDUCATION

IN THE ASEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

up.edu.ph

VOLUME 15 NUMBER 3MAY-JUNE 2014

FORUM

6 | CHED Gears Up for ASEAN 2015

s h a p i n g m i n d s t h a t s h a p e t h e n a t i o nU N I V E R S I T Y O F T H E P H I L I P P I N E S

4 | ASEAN Integration and Quality Assurance

2 | Internationalizing the National University: The UP President Speaks The crafting of the ASEAN 2015 Action Plan for

Philippine Higher Education is underway.Its development—only one in a set of tasks to be

undertaken by the agency—is in preparation for the establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015.

ASEAN 2015, as it is more commonly known, rose from ASEAN Vision 2020 proposed during the sum-mit in 1997. This vision of the region as a “concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a com-munity of caring societies” formed the concept of a regional community.

It was not until six years later, however, that the idea was given form through the signing of Bali Con-

On 7 October 2003, the heads of state of the ten (10) ASEAN countries signed a Declaration of

ASEAN Concord II in Bali, Indonesia, to establish by 2020 the ASEAN Community. The ASEAN Com-munity consists of three (3) pillars with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) as the goal for eco-nomic integration, the ASEAN Security Community (ASC) and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), which are expected to work in tandem by the period envisioned. A subsequent gathering on 21 November 2007 resulted in the signing and adoption of the blueprint to implement AEC by 2015. The AEC blueprint provided the implementing mechanism to transform ASEAN into a single market and produc-tion base, a highly competitive economic region, a

In an interview with the UP FORUM, the UP President shares his insights on international-

ization and what it means to UP as the national university. In particular, he discusses (1) UP’s purpose and how it contributes to the internation-alization efforts of the higher education sector; (2) the challenges in pursuing internationaliza-tion; (3) UP’s strategies to pursue it; (4) key points in the internationalization of higher educa-tion institutions (HEIs); and (5) the impact of ASEAN Community 2015 on Philippines HEIs.

UP FORUM: Why internationalize higher educa-tion? What does internationalization mean to UP

2 UP FORUM Volume 15 No. 3 May-June 2014

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INTERNATIONALIZING THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY...continued from page 1

We must showcase the best that UP can offer. Filipino learning, intelligence,

resourcefulness, talent and industry in every field—these are what we must

bring to the table in all our partnerships, research collaborations, student

and faculty exchange programs, scholarships and linkages.

as the national university?For me, internationalization is about

adopting an international outlook and aspiring for global competitiveness. Its specific manifestations are evident in increasing student mobility across the world, the proliferation of academic partnerships in education and research among universities from different coun-tries, the shift in the delivery of educa-tion online and via other technologies, the move towards international quality assurance mechanisms and accredita-tion of curricular offerings, and the changing profile of faculty, students and administrators, who can be recruit-ed from any part of the world.

From the perspective of UP as the country’s one and only national uni-versity, I look at internationalization as a means to enhance the University’s capability to serve our country and peo-ple. It is a strategy to help us achieve our vision of UP as a great university that has assumed leadership in help-ing develop a globally competitive Philippines. I believe we in UP can do better and achieve more if we enhance our collaboration with other leading universities in ASEAN and the world, and learn from their best practices. But we should be humble enough to face up to our weaknesses. We should evaluate ourselves critically while we benchmark externally. We must always strive for self-improvement in our own unique contexts.

For us in UP, we must seek to define and promote a truly Filipino identity. Our spirit and sense of nationalism must be the driving force in setting the direction of our teaching, research, and public service programs even as we internationalize. We must produce a distinctly Filipino output of innova-tion and creativity that we could banner across the globe and proclaim as our own contribution to the progress of humanity. We must showcase the best that UP can offer. Filipino learning, intelligence, creativity, resourcefulness, talent and industry in every field—these are what we must bring to the table in all our partnerships, research collabora-tions, student and faculty exchange pro-grams, scholarships and linkages. With this perspective, we should be able to reconcile nationalism with internation-alization.

The leading public universities in ASEAN, such as the National Universi-ty of Singapore, University of Malaya,

Mahidol University, and Chulalongkorn University, all recognize the necessity of internationalization in a globalized world and reflect this in their develop-ment agenda while remaining com-mitted to their mission for their home country.UP FORUM: What is the impact of the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 on Philippine HEIs?

The ASEAN Economic Community will be formalized by December 2015. This will signal the creation of a single market and production base in the region, although full economic integra-tion will take some time to take hold. With economic integration, the expec-tation is that the ten ASEAN countries will become more globally competitive as a group and be better able to achieve equitable economic development across the region. In support of integration, we will see efforts at facilitating the free flow of goods, services, investment, and capital and the free movement of business persons and skilled labor, including professionals.

The term “services” covers edu-cation; thus, integration may allow foreign schools, say from Malaysia, to set up shop in the Philippines and vice versa. As a result, our Philippine higher education institutions (HEIs) may face competition from regional outfits right here in our home ground, and at the same time have the opportunity to expand operation via a presence in another ASEAN country.

To facilitate the movement of profes-sionals within the region, the ASEAN countries are entering into mutual recognition agreements for profes-sional qualifications. Seven fields will be covered initially by these agree-ments: engineering, nursing, architec-ture, accountancy, medicine, dentistry and surveying. Many Philippine HEIs produce graduates in these disciplines; these institutions, including UP, must ensure that the graduates they produce meet not just the national, but also the regional qualification requirements.

With an integrated ASEAN, we expect that the advantage of our gradu-ates will somehow be challenged by graduates of universities from other ASEAN countries. We expect to see greater competition among graduates of ASEAN universities for jobs in the home country and elsewhere in the region. Thus, UP and other Philippine HEIs must develop in their graduates

core competencies and qualifications for jobs in the region. At a minimum, Philippine HEIs must ensure that their curricula are consistent with the ASEAN 2015 qualification framework requirements. In addition, our local uni-versities must produce graduates with the capability to develop and assume leadership roles region-wide in various fields of endeavor. UP FORUM: In a forum last year, you mentioned three key points in the internationalization of higher education institutions. Please discuss each one. The first is the need to "move from a comprehensive lineup of programs to niche programs."

UP is a very comprehensive univer-sity. We have more than 300 graduate and close to 200 undergraduate degree programs. Surely, because of financial and other constraints, we cannot be, or even aspire to be, excellent in all of these programs. Competition is won on the basis of being better than the oth-ers. To be better than the rest demands excellence.

It is true that over recent years UP has been able to enjoy increases in bud-get support from the government and to generate additional revenues from other sources. But we still have problems in achieving excellence in all our degree programs. The cost of recruiting, devel-oping, and retaining excellent faculty members is a challenge. So we must be selective in our academic offerings. We must streamline our programs; we must keep only those in which we have the relative strength and com-petitive advantage in terms of faculty members, physical facilities, research funding, and academic reputation. Our move must be tempered, of course, by strategic considerations. We may have to maintain domestically oriented pro-grams that are of strategic importance to the country. UP FORUM: What about the need to transition "from disciplinal enclaves to multidisciplinary, interdisciplin-ary, and transdisciplinary approach-es"?

Excellence in one’s field of special-ization is important, particularly in tackling a specific aspect of a problem or issue. But nowadays, specialists sel-dom work alone in addressing big chal-lenges, which are invariably complex—e.g., climate change mitigation, disaster management, food security, energy sufficiency, universal health care, etc. Researchers of different disciplinal expertise must collaborate and work

together in multidisciplinary, interdis-ciplinary, or transdisciplinary teams to arrive at effective and practicable solutions.

In UP, we have been promoting interdisciplinary research for some time now. In an era of internationalization, we must be more aggressive in ensur-ing that more of our academic units and faculty are engaged in interdisciplinary research. To be specific, we provide grants under the Emerging Interdisci-plinary Research Program (EIDR) to make the breadth and depth of knowl-edge available in our colleges and cam-puses to bear on the complex problems we face today. The outputs we expect are long-term (not short-sighted) and multi-faceted (not simplistic) solutions.

In addition, several of our constitu-ent units have put in place more formal structures to encourage faculty mem-bers from diverse disciplines to work together. UP Los Baños, for instance, has taken the lead with its 18 inter-disciplinary research centers. These research centers bring together experts from different fields to work together and address issues on food security and climate change, among others.

In our general education program, we continue to develop courses that weave together different disciplines to prepare our graduates for the complex world beyond the university. The Science Society Program of UP Diliman, for example, runs the Science, Technology, and Society course which is aimed at, among others, helping “the student gain a better understanding of the nature, as well as the cultural and political sig-nificance of mathematics, science and technology.”

The types of jobs our graduates will face in the workplace after gradua-tion demand broader perspectives. They need to have an appreciation of the linkages of their majors with other disciplines. Whatever programs we of-fer, we should be able to develop in our students a good understanding of how their area of specialization relates, sup-ports, and is supported by other fields.UP FORUM: The third key point you raised in that forum is the need to devel-op and increase the number of "competi-tive programs for student mobility."

Student mobility is our way of enabling our own students to experi-ence what is going on in the rest of the region and the world. We must provide them the opportunity to spend at least a semester in another environment.

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UP FORUM Volume 15 No. 3 May-June 2014 3

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INTERNATIONALIZING THE NA-TIONAL UNIVERSITY...continued from page 2

We must showcase the best that UP can offer. Filipino learning, intelligence,

resourcefulness, talent and industry in every field—these are what we must

bring to the table in all our partnerships, research collaborations, student

and faculty exchange programs, scholarships and linkages.

There are many reputable universities in the region that will attract our stu-dents. UP itself should be attractive to students from other universities in the region, particularly in areas where we have a long established reputation—English, humanities and the arts.

When we send our students abroad, they will experience and learn from different cultures. When we get foreign students into our classrooms, they will learn about the Philippines. Our local students who will be interacting with them in our campuses will also learn about the home countries of our guest students. This will help develop in our local students the capability to deal with other cultures and give them a head start as they prepare for leadership in an integrated ASEAN region.UP FORUM: How is UP develop-ing this "attractiveness" to foreign students? It has invested heavily in the sciences but the participation of foreign students in the University is more noticeable in the social, cul-tural, and artistic fields.

Indeed we’ve been investing a lot to improve the quality of our science and engineering programs—sometimes to a point where we become unable to maintain our reputation in areas where we have the historical edge, like the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It should be noted, however, that foreign graduate students in UP in the fields of basic and applied sciences have been increasing and academic productivity of UP in these fields has also been ac-celerating.

Under my administration, we’re rebalancing the funding support across disciplines. We’re now also commit-ting resources to areas outside the science and technology circle. This year 2014, for instance, we’re investing close to P400 million of UP’s capital outlay budget from the government in a Cultural Infrastructure Development Program (CIPD). Under the CIDP, we are building or rehabilitating auditori-ums, theaters, galleries, museums, and libraries for social sciences, humanities and the arts in our campuses across the UP System. UP FORUM: What are UP's strate-gies in pursuing internationalization?

Our strategic plan for UP calls for intensifying internationalization. Let me explain some of the strategies we’re pursuing to achieve this.

UP has been around for more than a hundred years and is accepted as the country’s premier university here and abroad. It is also seen as the face of the Philippine higher education. While maintaining visibility across the world, UP’s image has been suffering from its relatively low ranking in the league of Asian and world universities.

Academic reputation is an important factor in our international standing. To give this a boost, we must pursue actions to that will enhance the recogni-tion given to UP in regional and global academic circles. Thus, we’re funding more of our faculty to present papers and research outputs in international conferences abroad. We’re cooperat-ing with regional and global partners in hosting high profile international con-ferences here. We’re making substantial improvements in the academic content of our websites, exerting efforts to showcase our academic achievers and R&D accomplishments, among others.

While helping make UP better known to others, all these activities also have the collateral value of attracting new international partners and collaborators for UP and sensitizing our faculty to academic developments in the Univer-sity and the outside world.

To intensify internationalization, we must internationalize our academic programs. We’re doing this through partnerships with select foreign univer-sities for joint degree, sandwich, and accelerated graduate programs. UP Los Banos, for example, is now organizing joint degree programs with a couple of universities from other ASEAN countries.

To facilitate international collabo-rations, we’ve shifted our academic calendar to an August start beginning in 2014. This makes our calendar in better synch with our partner universities in ASEAN and the rest of the world. Take note that Malaysian and Thai universi-ties have also gone through the exercise of shifting their calendar earlier.

With the adoption of the K to12 pro-gram in the Philippine basic education system, we’re reviewing our General Education (GE) Program to address possible redundancies given the addi-tional two years of secondary school. In the review, we’re taking the opportuni-ty to develop advanced GE courses that could help better prepare our college graduates for graduate studies as well as for regional leadership in ASEAN.

We must also internationalize our R&D and creative work in UP. We do this by providing larger monetary

awards for publications in high quality international journals. We’re incentiv-izing the transformation of UP jour-nals into e-journals to achieve a wider international readership. We’re seeking and supporting active research collabo-rations with top foreign universities.

Internationalization provides oppor-tunities for higher education institu-tions to improve their faculty, student, and administrator profiles because of the possibility of recruiting from any part of the world. In UP, recruitment of professors from abroad is directed mainly, though not exclusively, to foreign-trained UP alumni and other Filipinos who are interested in coming back to the country. We have a package of incentives to attract such returnees. We don’t, of course, neglect those who

are already with us. We’ve increased the funding of our faculty development program so we can provide fellowships to more of our young faculty members for doctoral studies and post-doc pro-grams abroad.

It is unlikely that we’ll consider the option of employing foreign adminis-trators in UP any time soon. Quite apart from legal constraints, there are cultural factors that might prove to be formi-dable barriers.

To facilitate student exchanges with other ASEAN countries, UP has become an active participant in the ASEAN International Mobility for Stu-dents (AIMS) program of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organiza-tion (SEAMEO) as well as in the stu-

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ASEAN INTEGRATION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE...continued from page 1

Marilou G. Nicolas

Figure 1. A conceptual framework of the key elements of the UNESCO GEQAF continued on page 5

region of equitable economic develop-ment, and a region fully integrated into the global economy.

While the focus is economic, the five (5) core elements also include the free flow of services and free flow of skilled labor. The blueprint specified the implementation of mutual recogni-tion agreements (MRA) for various services including accountancy, tour-ism, engineering, architecture, medical, nursing and dental practices and other professional services by 2015. It also mandated the ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) to enhance coopera-tion among member universities and facilitate the mobility of both students and staff within the region. At the core of the MRAs and student and staff mo-bility in the region is quality assurance (QA). QA is expected to ensure that educational standards are harmonized and benchmarked among universities in the region.

Both the ASCC and the AEC treat education, particularly higher educa-tion, as the core action line to promote integration through enhanced human resource development in the region. While there are other dimensions in the ASCC, a major concern is promoting educational cooperation to narrow the development gaps in the region, prepare the youth for regional leadership and increase the competitiveness of ASE-AN nationals. The vision for education under the AEC comprises development of national skills framework that aligns with the ASEAN skills recognition framework, promotion of better student and professional training, as well as skilled workers mobility, and develop-ment of an ASEAN competency-based occupational standards for benchmark-ing in connection with mutual recogni-tion. The ASEAN Qualifications Refer-ence Framework (AQRF) will enable comparisons of qualifications to help in cross-border skills recognition and hu-man resource development for other services as well.

What is quality assurance?

The UNESCO Regional Report of Asia and the Pa-cific defines quality assur-ance in higher education as the systematic management and assessment procedures to monitor performance of higher education institu-tions. Quality considers all aspects of education—from teaching and aca-demic study programmes, research and scholarship, staffing, students, infra-structure and facilities, ser-vices to the community and the academic environment. Internal self-evaluation and external review, conducted

openly by independent special-ists, if possible with international expertise, are vital for enhancing quality.

The UNESCO General Educa-tion Quality Analysis/Diagnosis Framework (GEQAF) (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/quality-framework/struc-ture/) describes four key elements (conceptual framework shown below) that are interactive and iterative to en-able provision for quality education and effective learning experiences. The key elements include (1) the development goals “that guide the key outcomes of an education system, (2) the desired outcomes of this system, (3) the core processes and (4) core resources that produce these outcomes as well as support mechanisms that enable the production of the outcomes.” Thus, educational programs are instituted to meet the human resource needs to achieve the country’s vision and devel-opment goals. The desired outcomes should answer the question “what are we educating for; i.e., what kind of graduates should our educational programmes produce in order for our country to achieve its vision of national development?” Desired outcomes therefore should clearly define the com-petencies and lifelong learning skills of graduates/human resources needed by the country and determine the kind of educational processes that must be put in place to achieve these outcomes. These educational processes include learning as the central process, and teaching and assessment as facilitators of this learning process.

The country’s vision and develop-ment goals therefore dictate the desired outcomes which in turn prescribe the appropriate educational processes that will subsequently determine the types and quality of resources—curricula,

aca-demic staff, stu-dents and learn-ing environment—that must be put in place to support the main purpose of educa-tion. (See Figure 1.)

A continuous review of develop-ment goals vis a vis world and regional developments also necessitates con-tinuous assessment of the quality and relevance of our educational programs.

In 1998, during the world conference on higher education, delegates adopted the world declaration on higher educa-tion for the 21st century, which pres-ents the shifting paradigms of the 21st century higher education. It emphasized the need for greater diversification of education to match the skills demanded by new jobs thereby addressing jobs-skills mismatch. It also included the need for an increased awareness of the importance of education to socio-cultural and economic development, and for building the future with a new generation of young profession-als with “new skills, knowledge and ideals.” The digital age has provided the technology to provide equitable

access to quality education ensured through quality assurance. Quality assurance “has become an important global trend” primarily because of (1) the increase in the number of higher education providers across the world, which resulted in greater competition for student clientele, which in turn increased the potential for “academic fraud such as diploma-mill educational institutions, fly-by-night schools, fake credentials from alleged higher educa-tion institutions”; and (2) the challenges of financing educational institutions, political patronage and shifting priori-ties of administrations, which can affect the quality of higher education institu-tions. Quality assurance is needed to ensure the trustworthiness of providers of higher education. UNESCO also noted that “quality assurance is linked to professional mobility, and a grow-ing number of regional and interna-tional integration processes. This raises

the need for more effective mechanisms for the profes-sional recognition of higher education credentials” (www.unesco.org/new/en/doha/education/quality-assurance-in-higher-educa-tion/.

The ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) describes quality assurance as the systematic, structured and continuous attention to quality in terms of main-taining and improving quality.

“AUN recognizes the importance of quality in higher education, and the need to develop a holistic quality assurance system to raise academic standards and enhance education, research and service among


continued on page 7

ASEAN INTEGRATION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE...continued from page 4AUN member universities. In 1998, it mooted the AUN-QA initiative, which led to the development of AUN-QA models. In the last decade, AUN-QA has been promoting, developing, and implementing quality assurance prac-tices based on an empirical approach where quality assurance practices are shared, tested, evaluated, and im-proved.” (Source: ASEAN Universities Network Quality Assurance: Guide to AUN Actual Quality Assessment at Programme Level)

Tasked with providing the mecha-nism to facilitate the mobility of students and staff within the region, the ASEAN University Network (AUN) members undertook assurance of qual-ity education among the programs of its member institutions. In response to the provision of the World Declaration on Higher Education for the 21st Century, and in recognition of the “importance of quality in higher education, and the need to develop a holistic quality assurance system to raise academic

standards and enhance education, research and service among its members,” the AUN formulated the AUN-QA models.

These have been tested, evaluated and improved over time. The AUN-QA models comprise strategic (QA at institutional level), systemic (internal QA) and tacti-cal (program level QA) dimensions. The models are applicable to the diverse character of the AUN member universities and are aligned to both regional and inter-national quality as-surance frameworks. The AUN-QA mod-els also recognize that quality in higher education is mul-tidimensional and should embrace all

its functions and activi-ties such as teaching, research, staffing, students, academic programmes, infra-structure and the academic environment with special attention to specific institu-tional, national and regional contexts to

take into account diversity in the region and avoid uniformity.

Quality assurance in the AUN con-texts takes into consideration account-ability that is related to processes—i.e., whether minimum standards are in place, and development that is related to academic developmental goals an-chored on its strengths and weaknesses. Both accountability and development are evaluated internally—i.e., through internal QA (IQA) which “ensures that an institution, system or study pro-gramme has policies and mechanisms in place to make sure that it is meeting its own objectives and standards.” It fo-cuses on the quality of inputs, processes and output. IQA is a system that checks on the presence of mechanisms that control and ensure the level of quality in higher education.

The first step in internal QA is the preparation of the self- assessment report (SAR). The SAR provides an opportunity for the institution to determine whether it observes quality in instruction and its other activities. It allows the institution to discover what it is doing that is right, why they do what they are doing, or if what they are doing is done in the right way. It also allows them to know if the institution is able to comprehend the process of what they are doing, realize whether what they are doing is what they want or want to achieve. The SAR thus evaluates the following: (1) expected learning outcomes (goals and objec-tives), (2) programme specification , (3) programme structure and content (curriculum), (4) teaching and learning strategy, (5) student assessment, (6) academic staff quality, (7) support staff quality, (8) student quality, (9) student advice and support, (10) facilities and infrastructure, (11) quality assurance of teaching and learning process, (12) staff development activities, (13) stake-holders feedback, (14) output, and (15) stakeholders satisfaction.

The making of the SAR is time-con-suming and should involve all the staff and personnel. It looks for and discov-ers information that exists but has not been documented or compiled and al-lows a programme to address gaps and plan for the future.

External QA is conducted either by individuals or an organization outside the institution. Assessors must act independently, must have no conflict of interest and must be accepted by the faculty of the program to be assessed. Assessors evaluate the process, opera-

tions, systems or programmes of the institution to determine if they meet the agreed upon standards.

“The purpose of the assessment is not about the assessment ratings but rather the continuous improvement of the QA system implemented. As the assess-ment will be based mostly on objec-tive evidences, it is important that the university has prepared a well written SAR and get ready all key documents and records for assessment. This docu-ment will allow assessors to look at the history of the program, the perfor-mance of its students, employability and feedback from all stakeholders, the quality of academic and support staff, etc.” Planning and quality assessment follows the Plan-Do-Check-Act or De-ming cycle as shown in Figure 2.

ASEAN Integration will bring about (1) greater mobility of human resourc-es, (2) demand on competitiveness and/or quality of graduates and programs and (3) greater regional cooperation on education and research. For us to be successfully integrated into the ASEAN economy, our educational system should provide graduates with the requisite skills for the changing labor market. Already the vibrant production processes across the region have re-sulted in changing demands for skills in industries particularly in IT, health and services. In response to these dynam-ics, we have to have a flexible domestic labor force that is well prepared. The mutual recognition agreements of professional qualifications will have significant implications for both our basic and higher educations. These will impact on our national vision for educating our young generations, the content that will be taught in educa-tional systems, the teaching methodolo-gies and learning processes, quality assurance of teaching and learning, the development of technical-vocational education and training, qualification recognition arrangements and system-wide policies and planning such as investment in education, balance and priority for program offerings.

For higher education, our systems should also prepare for new types of international students or the so-called “glocal” students. Glocal students are those who have global aspirations but prefer to stay in their home country or region for education. Transnational education is becoming popular and will increase both inbound and outbound students encouraged by provisions on student and staff mobility. ASEAN is home to about 600 million people

Figure 2. The PDCA or Deming cycle of quality assessment


CHED GEARS UP...continued from page 1

cord II. Four more years passed before the Cebu Declaration on the Accelera-tion of the Establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015 was signed during the organization’s 12th summit.

In a CHED briefing paper released by its International Affairs Service (IAS) in March 2014, Chairperson Patricia Licuanan admitted that the country needs to “catch up with the much earli-er preparations of its ASEAN partners.”

Apart from the action plan, Licuanan said the following need to be accom-plished: (1) a policy framework for the "Internationalization of Higher Educa-tion," (2) the inclusion of more Philip-pine universities in the ASEAN Univer-sity Network (AUN), (3) participation in the ASEAN International Mobility of Students (AIMS) Program, and (4) the development of a better credit trans-fer system and "Diploma Supplement which will enable the comparability of Philippine higher education with those of other countries."

ASEAN 2015 is based on three pillar communities: political and security, economic, and socio-cultural. CHED, along with the Department of Educa-tion and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, fall un-der the third pillar. The lead Philippine agency in the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) is the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Two key elements in the ASCC Blue-print, adopted in 2009, guide CHED’s efforts toward ASEAN 2015—promot-ing human development and building the ASEAN identity. The IAS docu-ment, “The Role of Philippine Higher Education in ASEAN Community Building 2015,” enumerates CHED initiatives as of 10 March 2014:

• Development of ASEAN 2015 Roadmap for Higher Education

• Inclusion of Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Tech-nology in the AUN-Southeast Asia Engineering Education Develop-ment Network

• Hosting of AUN regional confer-ences

• Adoption of the University Mobil-ity in Asia and the Pacific Credit Transfer Scheme

• Hosting the 7th AIMS Review Meeting

• Participation in ASEAN Quali-fications Reference Framework (AQRF) meetings and ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area-Economic Cooperation Work

Programme workshops• Conduct of AQRF workshop• Participation in ASEAN Quality As-

surance Network meetings• Inclusion in the ASEAN Citation

Index• Publication of “Enhanced Policies

and Guidelines on Student Affairs ad Services”

• Distribution of electronic copies of the “Guidelines for Accommodat-ing PWDs in Post-Secondary and Tertiary Institutions”

• Co-hosting the 6th International Conference on Humanoid, Nano-technology, Information Technol-ogy, Communication and Control, Environment, and Management with De La Salle University

• Co-hosting the 1st ASEAN Future Teachers’ Camp with the Philippine Normal University (PNU)

• Preparation of the “Revised Poli-cies, Standards, and Guidelines (PSGs) on the Student Internship Abroad Program”

• Signing of memoranda with the Re-public of Singapore, the Ministry of University Affairs of Thailand, and the Ministry of Education and Training of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

• Negotiating memoranda with Indo-nesia and the Lao People’s Demo-cratic Republic

• Framework for a typology-based quality assurance system for PH higher education

• Reformulated PSGs into an out-comes-based education

• Implementation of the Philippine Higher Education Research Net-work

• A program for the adoption of a school or college offering BS de-gree in Chemistry

• 2010 CHED-UPLB Summer School and Camp in Mathematics

• Campaign for the implementation of the Special Program for Em-ployment of Students

• Sustaining excellence in biology instruction, research, and exten-sion at the Institute of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sci-ences, UP ..Los Baños

• The CHED-IMSP Research Pro-gram for Excellence in Mathemat-ics

• Preparation and issuance of poli-cies and guidelines on student internship in local and international companies

• Faculty Development Program • Gender and sensitivity training• Gender and development planning

and budgeting• Women Empowerment and Devel-

opment towards Gender and Equal-ity training

• Harmonized Gender and Develop-ment Guidelines

• APEC Diploma Supplement Work-shop

• PSGs for Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Prescrib-ing Additional Electives on Service Management for Business Out-sourcing

• Agreement between CHED and IBM on the offering of the Smart Analytics program

• Celebration of the ASEAN Day in partnership with De La Salle University

• PNU held a commemorative ASEAN flag raising ceremony during its Foundation Day (the International Affairs Service office of CHED will recommend that the same activity be practiced in all SUCs)

Apart from these, CHED also car-ries out the Higher Education Reform Agenda 2011-2016, components of which contribute to preparing the Phil-ippines for ASEAN 2015.

These initiatives include, among others, the establishment of a quality assurance system for the Philippine Qualifications Framework; the shift to learning competency-based standards or learner outcomes-based qualifica-tions in the disciplines; revision of the general education curriculum with the implementation of K to 12; review of graduate education and transnational programs; close collaboration with in-dustry in specifying competencies and training of teachers in industry-oriented disciplines; and embarking on the Phil-ippine California Advanced Research Institutes.

ASEAN member states recognize the crucial role of higher education in regional development. As the lead Philippine agency, CHED continues to work toward achieving a harmonized higher education environment in the region, which will ultimately contribute to the realization of an ASEAN Com-munity by 2015. --------------------Email the author at [email protected].

Photo from http://w

ww.braincontour.com

/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/C

HED

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Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo


Figure 3. The Baldridge model for performance excellence in education. Source: 2011-2012 Education criteria for performance excellence

ASEAN INTEGRATION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE...continued from page 5with a large population of young and educable people. Harmonization of the ASEAN higher education systems will encourage student mobility, credit transfer, quality assurance and greater research collaborations among the region’s 6,500 higher education institu-tions of about 12 million students in 10 nations. ASEAN is envisioning a Common Space of Higher Education in Southeast Asia, very similar to the Eu-ropean Higher Education Area created through the Bologna Accords.

Already student mobility through the ASEAN credit transfer system (http://acts.ui.ac.id/) is being implemented with member home universities com-mitting to send at least five (5) students yearly for at least one term in a host ASEAN university. A working group on mobility of higher education and ensuring quality assurance of higher education for ASEAN plus three (with Japan, Korea and China) is being discussed and the European Union Support to Higher Education in the ASEAN Region (EU-SHARE) will be implemented to help the CLM (Cambo-dia, Lao PDR and Myanmar) achieve regional standards.

ASEAN shall become a market for employment of graduates as well as students seeking enrollment in the world’s leading universities while stay-ing in Asia or near their home countries as so-called “glocal” students. Thus various ASEAN governments have poured in logistics and financial sup-port to their universities to strengthen the performance of their academic programs in the area of teaching, re-search and innovation. Competitive-ness indicators are being used to assess programs and graduates. ASEAN will become a marketplace for globally competitive graduates seeking employ-ment and “glocal” students looking to study in world-class universities while staying near their home countries.

Why UP needs a quality assurance system

The University of the Philippines is the country’s national university. Although there are 112 other state universities and colleges, the UP has always been considered the number one university and gets the lion’s share of support among all the public universi-ties. Thus, through the years, there has been no incentive among its faculty and programmes about quality and continu-ous quality improvement because of the mindset that UP is still and will always be the best in the country—i.e., there is no other university, particularly public university, that can compete with it. Ensuring the quality of programs is left to the faculty of departments offering the programs. Thus conflicts of interests usually leads to internal clashes within departments. Creation of many programs is also left to the faculty, with very minimal inputs from various stakeholders (students, alumni, employers, both public and private, etc.) and is being done without evaluat-

ing existing ones for relevance, quality and sustainability even if new programs are scrutinized by various committees and bodies such as the university cur-riculum committees and the university councils.

In the changing educational land-scape, curricular review to incorporate changes to make our programs region-ally, if not globally competitive, must be undertaken. Tracer studies, exit interviews, industry partnerships and stakeholders feedback—quality assur-ance indicators are needed to assess the competitiveness of graduates of Philippine higher education, including UP, against local, national, regional and international institutions of higher learning. Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs with the ultimate goal of focusing on fewer but more focused programs, maximizing our competitive advantage and em-phasizing innovation rather than pure teaching are im-portant elements that will help us plan curricular reforms in higher education. Our students, faculty and administrators must welcome a paradigm shift and develop a global mindset with focus on developing competencies, em-phasizing quality and development of soft skills such as communication, flexibility, initia-tive and ability to work with a team.

The national qualifications framework should align higher educa-tion programs to demands of stakeholders and our national vision for development, and should provide measures for assessing quality. Investments in human capital and infrastructure, quality assurance assessments, review of national laws, stakeholders feedback and consultation and a competency-based standards for our professionals that are aligned with the ASEAN competency-based occu-pational standards are critical steps to help us achieve competitiveness for our educational programs and prepare our higher education graduates for the influx of well-educated nationals of ASEAN and enhance further our image, percep-tions, credibility, and influence.

The building of an ASEAN Com-munity will also involve commitment of the 10 countries to cross-sectoral cooperation in education to narrow the development gap between the more developed and less developed coun-tries. Thus we should anticipate and prepare for greater partnerships or joint programs and research collaborations.

And while the shift in academic cal-endar is a first step to providing an en-abling mechanism for regional mobil-ity, the inflow of students and staff will still depend on the quality assurance of our study programmes/curricula, the uniqueness of courses that will truly help others understand our culture and the learning environment we provide.

The current UP administration has taken the first steps in quality assurance by having three of its undergraduate programmes undertake quality as-surance site visits and assessments. Between the periods July 2013 to January 2014, the BS Civil Engineering and the BS Statistics programs of UP Diliman and that of the BS Biology of UP Los Banos were visited by ASEAN and European assessors who conducted a review of the self- assessment report and supporting documents and pro-cesses. The preliminary results which were presented showed that these pro-grammes more than adequately meet the AUN-QA criteria of quality.

Thus, the university submitted a proposal for a consultancy visit to help UP set up an internal quality assurance system. The consultancy visit will also help UP programmes formulate ex-pected learning outcomes using the BS Civil Engineering experience as case study, since it has undergone ASEAN-QA assessment. The proposal was selected and a consultancy visit and workshop by two quality assurance ex-perts from ASEAN and Europe, under the ASEAN-QAct will be conducted on July 9-11 for administrators, i.e., Sys-tem officials, chancellors, vice chancel-lors, deans and faculties undergoing or intending to undergo QA assessment.

In summary, quality assurance is pri-marily a response to demand for greater accountability and efficiency with regard to utilization of public funds, the finite human and institutional resources, and the increasing requirements of various stake-holders for quality education and training.

Quality assurance is a guarantee to var-ious stakeholders, students and employers

Quality assurance, however, cannot be implemented without the involve-ment of the entire system, thus the need for total quality management (TQM). Quality assurance starts with the leader-ship understanding what desired out-comes of the educational processes are envisioned, including these outcomes in the planning, focusing on provid-ing stakeholders (student, faculty, staff, alumni and employers) satisfaction, and overhauling the system, if needed, to ensure that processes and enabling mechanisms are in place to effect a good learning environment. It also involves a continuous assessment and analysis of existing systems for improvement.

Figure 3 provides the Baldridge education criteria for a performance excellence framework. The model shows the direct and indirect effect of the seven criteria in contributing to quality management, performance measurement and educational outcomes of institutions.

that undergraduate and post-graduate programs are relevant and responsive to the developmental, social, intellectual and economic needs of contemporary societies. A QA system will also ensure continuing review of curricula and how these are being implemented, identify current weaknesses and strengths and plan for improvement. Finally, quality assurance is linked to human resource (student, staff, professional) mobility, and a growing number of regional and international integration processes.--------------------Dr. Marilou G. Nicolas is a professor of biochemistry at the College of Arts and Sciences, UP Manila. She is the assistant vice president for Academic Affairs and executive director of the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UCIDS). She earned her BS in Chem-istry, MS in Biochemistry and PhD in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from UP. Email her at [email protected].


Two University Presidents and the Battle for Academic Hearts and MindsAndre Encarnacion

Two university presidents from opposite ends of Katipunan Avenue appear to be on the same side when it comes to internationalization.

This much was evident when UP President Alfredo E. Pascual joined Ateneo de Ma-nila President Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin on 19 November 2013 at the Education Competi-tiveness in an ASEAN Integrated Era forum.

The event, which was held at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel, Mandaluyong City and organized by the University of the Philippines and PUBLiCUS Asia, Inc., featured experts, leaders and policymakers to discuss how the country and its higher education institutions (HEIs) can be ready for the changes brought about by ASEAN integration in 2015.

Speaking on behalf of public and private higher education institutions, respectively, Pascual and Villarin highlighted both the advantages and the challenges their respective institutions face with the impending formation of a single market and production base within ASEAN.

While both leaders came prepared with a healthy amount of statistics and cases to support their claims, it became clear that in one important respect both private and public HEIs faced this common conundrum: Beyond any necessary physical changes, how can the hearts and minds that run our country's HEIs be changed to compete with the world's best?

Paradigm Shift"We have to go through a paradigm shift," Pascual pronounced gravely. While his talk

was primarily concerned with the principles that could guide SUCs in navigating the channels of internationalization, he also gave due cause and context to why Philippine HEIs should not be caught flat-footed by 2015.

"Now the move towards ASEAN integration is happening within the context of globalization," he explained. "There is a need to band together for the countries in Southeast Asia so that together as a region, we can be competitive globally." And with the creation of a single market and production base in ASEAN also comes the free flow of services—more specifically, the free flow of professional services provided by the graduates of ASEAN universities.

Pascual said that with the mutual recognition agreements for professional qualifica-tions in place to facilitate the movement of professionals within the region, it has be-come the responsibility of HEIs like UP to ensure that the graduates they produce meet national and regional expectations.

Seven fields will be covered initially by these agreements: engineering, nursing, architecture, accountancy, medicine, dentistry and surveying. Many HEIs produce graduates in these areas.

"With an integrated ASEAN, we expect that the advantage of our graduates will somehow be challenged by graduates from universities and colleges from other ASEAN countries," he said. Despite the current monopoly that local HEIs have on professional and high-level executive positions, this situation may very well come under threat.

"With the opening of our borders within the ASEAN region and the freer flow of professionals we expect competition with graduates from other universities in our re-gion, even within the Philippines—particularly for jobs in multinational companies...It's already happening (in the country)."

Filipinos are also losing their edge, particularly in English. Pascual recounted the story of a colleague who visited the University of Indonesia to do quality assurance on behalf of the ASEAN University Network. "And she was amazed to see," he said, "that people from the faculty to the students that she dealt with...were very fluent in English."

With these developments, and with the relatively humble ranking of Philippine universities compared to their peers in the other ASEAN founding member countries in mind, Pascual offered the following principles local higher education institutions could "bank on" in their journey towards internationalization.

"In a number of universities, including my university, there is tension between nation-alism and internationalism," he said. "There is resistance from certain sectors to going international."

Rates of Change

UP Vice-President for Public Affairs Prospero De Vera (left) invites questions from the forum's audience addressed to UP President Pascual (center) and ADMU President Villarin (right).

Pascual noted that this stems from the traditional mandate of SUCs as publicly funded institutions to put the needs of the people and the country first. He, however, believes that SUCs need not take a step back from either the promotion of Filipino identity or serving the needs of the country to internationalize.

"In fact, our sense of nationalism will be the basis for us to achieve the Filipino distinctiveness in the world...If we don’t have this distinctiveness, we will be hard put to attract researchers or tourists from other countries. Because there’s nothing different we can offer in our country. So we have to keep and nurture our nationalism as we play the international field."

Number OneAnother vital component of this paradigm shift is the move from a comprehensive

lineup of program offerings towards developing niche programs. Pascual noted how the change could start with UP, one of the most comprehensive universities in the country, which boasts of more than 300 graduate and close to 200 undergraduate programs.

"What is the number one university in Asia?" Pascual asked, for context. "It is a rela-tively new university (about 20 years old)—the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology." It has only five schools or colleges, but whatever programs they have in these colleges are reputed to be of high quality. "Size does not matter in terms of reputa-tion," he reminded his audience.

This is more telling considering Pascual's observation that university rankings in publications and citations were made on a per-faculty and per-paper basis, respectively, supporting the claim that quality rather than quantity was the more significant element in making a world-class university.

"I know SUCs, including UP, have very limited resources," Pascual said. "So we need to focus…we need to define the niche programs we can pursue based on our competi-tive or comparative advantage, based on the needs of our regional locations. And focus our resources on a few chosen niche programs to achieve excellence in them."

"And with excellent programs, we can become competitive." Closely related to this push to streamline program offerings is the need to move from

what Pascual called "disciplinal enclaves" to transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. "It is very clear that to tackle the problems of the coun-try and the world we need to address them from many fronts and we need a combina-tion of disciplines."

"In our research, the funding we provide from the UP System is only for research proposals that are interdisciplinary."

This would neces-sarily mean bypassing one of the touchiest of academic culture's offsprings—“turfing.”

"Academic depart-ments have cre-ated strong parapets," Pascual explained, "to


Two University Presidents and the Battle for Academic Hearts and Minds


UP Vice-President for Public Affairs Prospero De Vera (left) invites questions from the forum's audience addressed to UP President Pascual (center) and ADMU President Villarin (right).

protect their turf." Because of this, it remains a constant challenge to get faculty mem-bers to work together.

"But in order to thrive in the complexity of the globalized world, our faculty members should collaborate more" Pascual stressed. "If we are promoting cooperation between universities, I think we should start with collaboration, say in education or research, among our own Philippine colleges and universities."

Lastly, Pascual prescribed developing competitive programs for student mobility. These would be primarily composed of student exchange programs, inbound and out-bound. In UP, this could be more easily achieved with the shift of its academic calendar from a June to an August start.

For and By Manila"It's interesting," Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin noted, "that while Fred was speaking I was

resonating with many of the points." And indeed, despite the distinct challenges faced by private universities, his lecture hit several notes that harmonized with Pascual's.

Villarin said that his overall vision for the Ateneo (he explicitly mentioned not being in a position to speak for all other private universities) began to take definite shape when Ateneo reviewed its strategic directions.

When it came to identity, he and his colleagues identified two 'DNA' issues as being related both in their primacy and their interrelation. These are publishing and interna-tionalization.

Internationalization, in particular, was something they took pains to emphasize. "(Any) university worth its salt has to be international. It cannot just be local. Any university by its very nature has to have broad horizons. Its reach cannot be just very parochial. We said we need to state it."

"Now I am sorry to say that Ateneo de Manila is no longer 'de Manila'—for Manila or by Manila. It has to be more. And that’s difficult."

For Villarin, however, Ateneo de Manila's internationalization strategy is easy to describe. "Increase our sense of global citizenship," he said. Despite what he calls both the country's "colonial history" and its proverbial "hospitality to the foreigners," it

practically remains an archipelago in its physical and mental geography.

"Actually universi-ties can be one of the most conservative of institutions," Villarin admits, "even though they are free think-ers." (It's as if they say:) Pinag-isipan na namin ito eh. Mar-unong ka pa? Mas marunong kami. And therefore this is the challenge: how do we move beyond our narrow interests? The challenge of interna-tionalism vis-a-vis nationalism."

In Villarin and the Ateneo's case, internationalization is never an end in itself. Instead, it presents an

opportunity for them to strengthen both the institution and the quality of education that it offers. "It is about being able to navigate and contribute to shaping our interconnected world."

The Five ChallengesVillarin then introduced the five points he presented to the Ateneo’s board of trustees,

which encapsulate what he believes are the major challenges facing HEIs in the 21st century. Though some of them were not explicitly educational, they would later be shown to have components in which education could play a decisive role.

The first challenge is inclusive development. "I think the response to this challenge is still education," he stated. "One, you want to destroy the feudal structure, the padrino system, the PDAF—you want to destroy that? You educate. You let people finish."

Ateneo de Manila's experience in mobilizing manpower and coordinating the relief effort in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Yolanda also taught Villarin a powerful lesson. "If there’s one thing that Yolanda has been teaching us, it is the need for leaders, the need for managers.

"Tama na yung inspire-inspire. What we need is logistics-systems people. When we were packing, we packed about 80,000 relief goods. And that was a logistics challenge."

"Trucks were coming in at different times, yung supply chain hindi consistent eh. How do we get this to the pier to deliver to Leyte? It’s beyond physics. So we got advice from the different disciplines."

The second challenge was what Villarin called the democratization or "massification" of knowledge in the 21st century. "You’ve heard of Coursera? You’ve heard of edX? Let me explain what this phenomenon is. If I want to study Physics 101 or Calculus, I don’t have to enrol in UP or Ateneo, I can go to the Internet."

The relative ease of access to knowledge that was previously contained behind the bailiwicks of academia has been a challenge even to climate experts like Villarin. Because of this accessibility, experts like him have to work harder to attain two vital things—depth and breadth—with respect to the knowledge they have.

What experts could provide is a guiding light amidst the dizzying cornucopia of in-formation. "You need people to actually shepherd others through this maze... Have you ever tried surfing one night, and how one branch leads to another, before you realize, Gabi na. Puyat na ako."

"You need leaders who don’t go down that path. So the challenge here is to achieve greater depth and specialization while simultaneously developing synthetic expertise that can handle, rationalize, and process complex data in diverse ecosystems."

The third challenge is international competition. And here, Villarin echoed Pascual's call for HEIs in the country to seek their respective niches. According to Villarin, dif-ferentiation is not only the underlying rationale for trade between economies, but also between universities across borders.

"Kung pare-pareho tayong lahat (ng expertise), there will be no trade. Why will they come to us? What do we have to offer? What is our cultural, geographic and natural advantage? That’s something we have to think about."

The fourth challenge is speed, specifically the rapidity of change in systems and so-cieties. This rapidity forces us to be "light, versatile and mobile." And this consequence will require the mastery of what Villarin calls modularization and systems thinking.

"You cannot plan for something to last that long. Why? Because if you enter first-year college now with this course, by the time you graduate from college four years from now, that course may not be needed."

His response is not the adoption of radical methods, but a strengthening of funda-mentals. "What is the response? I say to enhance the foundation offered by the liberal arts and the sciences. Basic science. It will help us cope with the speed of change in this century."

He recalled his education as a physics major, which he credits with developing an "openness" to new knowledge because of its diversity. If, he said, his education was simply in an overly-specialized or narrow field, it would have made future adjustments

Photos from the ADMU website, http://www.admu.edu.ph/ateneo-student-life/gallery


The AIMS ProgrammeAndre Encarnacion

INTERNATIONALIZING THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY...continued from page 3

Borderless and diverse” were the words that UP President

Alfredo E. Pascual chose to best describe the world and the state of higher education taking shape within it. His audience, composed predominantly of delegates from neighboring Southeast Asian countries, agreed.

It was no surprise. Pascual was addressing participants in the 7th ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Program review meeting co-hosted by UP and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) at Ang Bahay ng Alumni last 8 May 2014.

The AIMS Program is a part-nership among Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organiza-tion (SEAMEO) member coun-tries. It began in 2009 as a pilot project supported by the govern-ments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, giving it the moniker ‘M-I-T.’

The SEAMEO Regional Center for Higher Education and De-velopment (SEAMEO RIHED) served as the secretariat for the mobility program’s development. Its aim was to cultivate global human resources; inspired by the belief that the mobility of students, academics, researchers and admin-istrative staff will aid in establish-ing a “Southeast Asian Higher Education Area.”

During its third review meeting held in Penang, Malaysia in 2012, the original M-I-T member coun-tries agreed to its expansion. The program has since accepted new members as a means to accelerate efforts to meet the needs of the ASEAN Community by 2015.

dent exchange program of the ASEAN University Network (AUN). The UP System and our constituent universities have also signed bilateral arrangements with foreign universities for student and faculty exchange program.

When it comes to regular foreign students, we’d like more of them to go into our graduate programs and enrich our research and creative work activities. In our undergraduate programs, we’ve been accepting foreign nationals as regular students for many years now, but our current preference is for growth in number to come from inbound exchange students who will spend a semester or two in UP while our own outbound exchange students are spending their semester abroad. Given our limited capacity at the moment, we deliberately hold down the admission of regular foreign students into our bachelor’s degree programs. We do not want foreign recruits to unduly displace Filipino applicants, of which only around 16 percent can be admitted on average.

Internationalization is also characterized by changes in the delivery of education. Worldwide educational programs are moving toward the use of online and other technologies to make teaching and learning a more efficient and effective process. The UP Open University (UPOU) is very much in the mainstream of this develop-ment with its web-based program offerings. Through UPOU, we plan to achieve a substantial growth in our enrolment with more students from other countries, including children of the millions of Filipino overseas workers.

In our traditional classroom-based schools and colleges, we’re encouraging the introduction of blended learning models that combine face-to-face sessions with computer-based methods. For this, we have instituted the Gawad Pangulo (Presi-dential Award) for Progressive Teaching and Learning to recognize faculty members who enrich course content and innovate in pedagogy.

With UP’s long tradition of public service, we have actively participated in regional networks that promote civic engagement and public service, such as the Asia-Talloires Network of Industry and Community Engaged Universities (AT-NEU), AUN’s University Social Responsibility and Sustainability (USR&S) The-matic Network, and AsiaEngage to share our public service initiatives, learn from other universities in the region, promote student and faculty exchanges and regional collaboration.

As we internationalize, we must work to achieve operational efficiency. We’re doing this through the implementation eUP, an integrated information system within and across our campuses. The ICT network underlying eUP will provide the infra-structure support as well for innovations in teaching, research, and service. We’re also strengthening our UP Office of International Linkages, coordinating with con-cerned government offices to facilitate the documentation for foreign students and visiting professors, and building quality housing facilities for students and faculty.UP FORUM: What are the challenges in pursuing internationalization?

A key to successful internationalization is quality assurance. We must make sure the quality of our program offerings meet international standards. How can we be sure if our programs are indeed of international standards? We get an international panel to do the assessment. Simply saying we’re the best does not prove anything.

We’ve started to do that under the auspices of the AUN, which has a quality as-surance assessment program. So far, we’ve subjected to such assessment two of our degree programs in UP Diliman—BS Civil Engineering and BS Statistics—and one program in UP Los Baños—BS Biology. These bachelor’s degree programs have rated well, as we expected, and the suggestions for improvement from the rating panels are quite useful. So it is not as if we have nothing to learn anymore. In addi-tion, for engineering, we’re working to get accepted into the Washington Accord so that our engineering programs will have international recognition.

Internationalization is all about quality. Producing quality programs is hard work. In addition to external quality assurance assessments, we have enhanced UP’s inter-nal system of academic assessment and development. Our faculty administrators are at the forefront of the quest for quality.

Internationalization is an expensive process. We need to recruit and retain excel-lent teaching staff to bring in foreign and foreign-trained Filipino academics to beef up our capabilities. We need to have a richness of perspectives that can only be achieved if we have diversity not just among students but among the faculty as well.

Internationalization requires big funding. And for public universities, the govern-ment’s strategy is to concentrate public resources in a few institutions that could be developed into globally competitive universities. This strategy must be fully implemented now.UP FORUM: UP's mandate, as stated in its Charter, is to "perform its unique and distinctive leadership in higher education and development." How has UP contributed to the internationalization efforts of the higher education sector?

With regard to internationalization, we in UP are still going through our own learning process. As we learn, we gain more knowledge, insights, and experiences that we can share with other universities in the country. Our programs will definitely be available for them to learn from.

Even now, we’re helping sensitize the higher education sector with the chal-lenges and opportunities associated with internationalization. UP has organized conferences in partnership with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) to discuss issues related to internationalization.

In my capacity as UP President, I’ve given talks on internationalization in con-ferences and meetings attended by officials and faculty members of other higher education institutions. Among the recent presentations I’ve made are: (1) “Greater Heights through Internationalization” at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology in July 2013; (2) “Leadership in a Changing Educational Environ-ment” at the Network of CALABARZON Educational Institutions, Inc. (NOCEI) General Assembly in August 2013; (3) “Higher Education Competitiveness in an ASEAN Integrated Era” at a PUBLiCUS Asia Forum in November 2013; and (4) “ASEAN Integration: Implications for Management Education” at the Council of Management Educators and Practitioners in the Philippines COMEPP) National Convention in July 2014.


The AIMS ProgrammeUP and the Future of Student Mobility in the ASEAN


Delegates from various Asian countries gather at Ang Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman, for the 7th Review Meeting of the ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Programme, held in May 2014.

The AIMS Program was officially born. What started as a pilot test among three nations now includes seven member countries, with seven supported academic disci-plines from the original five.

Global competitiveness, according to Pascual, is the primary challenge.“For academics and education planners like us, the need to intensify our internation-

alization programs has never been more urgent.”True enough, many of the members of ASEAN and its partners have been anything

but gun-shy in their response. From the reports of each member country’s delegates, it appears that the push for internationalization in higher education in the region has reached a fever pitch.

The AIMS Program has surely been a major catalyst in this affair. But what exactly does it mean to be part of the program? What are the overall goals and benefits to membership that inspired higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region to make significant policy changes?

The AIMS ProgramIn the program overview, the M-I-T is described as a “multilateral mobility program

with regional scope.” Its successor, the AIMS, operates on similar principles. Its intent is to allow 50 students from each representing country to be given financial support by their governments to study for one semester in a university from a counterpart nation in the programme.

When it comes to students, the AIMS operates on the principle of reciprocity. Send-ing 50 outbound students per country is consequently met with the responsibility of sponsoring 50 incoming students in turn. The inclusion of new member countries means the proportional increase in the number of exchange students sent per year.

In addition, there are currently seven selected areas of study students can explore as participants. They include hospitality and tourism, agriculture, language and culture, international business, food science and technology, and the latest additions, econom-ics, and engineering. These have been identified as common among participating HEIs and strategic priorities for developing expertise in the Southeast Asian Region.

“We have been able to cover 600 students so far,” said Special Adviser to SEAMEO RIHED Chantavit Sujatanond in her report, “inbound-outbound, from seven par-ticipating countries. Our plan is by next year, to cover up to 10 fields of study in 10 countries.”

Due to the fact that some other countries in ASEAN may not be able to match up in terms of the available funding, Sujatanond said that they would consult with several agencies and organizations to eventually facilitate complete ASEAN participation. This could also extend to ASEAN+3 (ASEAN with Japan, the Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China) in a few years, if all preconditions are met.

Expected OutcomesBesides the obvious goals of a united ASEAN in 2015, supporters of the AIMS Pro-

gram like Sujatanond believe the program’s expansion carries with it its own distinct benefits. The program’s operational handbook specifies three specific beneficiaries: countries, higher education institutions and students.

In the case of individual countries, the AIMS program intends to enhance the profile and visibility of Southeast Asian higher education. A vital component of this

enhancement is developing the capacity to deliver international education and build the reputation of higher education in the region to encourage the entry of international students.

Achieving this necessitates increasing the capacity of HEIs in the region to de-liver international education. This could lead to the development of an international atmosphere built on the experiences of both inbound overseas students and outbound students upon their return.

Students on the other hand gain the opportunity to experience operating in an inter-national environment and develop socio-cultural links with peers from other coun-tries. The resulting student networks are described as “a great asset for the future.”

As Sujatanond hinted, the harmonization of higher education in the region is ex-pected to develop a “multicultural space where people respect differences in culture, language and religion while aware of the common values and unity of ASEAN na-tions.” This comes with the more tangible benefit of training highly skilled graduates with cross-cultural experience for a more competitive workforce within participant nations.

The Competitive Shift Inspired by the promise of internationalization programs in higher education like

the AIMS, it is no wonder several nations in the region have crafted ambitious inter-nationalization policies with competitive budgets to support them.

This became apparent when delegates from individual AIMS Program nations pre-sented their respective countries’ policies and strategies in the event’s plenary session. Malaysia’s Director for Higher Education Jaafar Janantan, for instance, stated their aim to become “the hub of excellence for higher education internationally by 2020.”

This would involve attracting 200,000 or 10 percent of all international enrolments in higher education institutions by that year. Even today Malaysia stands as a formi-dable force in international student mobility in the region, with about 50,000 foreign students within its borders.

Indonesia, another country from the original M-I-T, the AIMS Program precursor, also boasts of having taken considerable steps towards internationalization. Two of these, according to Directorate General of Higher Education Dr. Widyo Winarso are the Darmasiswa and the Beasiswa Unggulan programs.

First established in 1974 as a program to promote Indonesian language, art and cul-ture internationally, the Darmasiswa has attracted nearly 4,000 students from over 97 countries by itself. The Beasiswa Unggulan, on the other hand, is a much more recent creation, established in 2006 by the Indonesian government as a scholarship program for foreign students with high academic performance.

And while the Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) may just have been inaugu-rated in 1985, it has also undertaken significant efforts towards internationalization. One major step, said Head of the Higher Education Division Hajah Anis Faudzulani Binti Haji Dzulkiflee, is the Global Discovery Program. This was launched in 2011 to offer international students a “taste of life in the culture-rich kingdom of Brunei Darussalam.”

UBD has also partnered with a total of 79 universities and institutions worldwide, many catering to study abroad and student exchange activity.


Demonstrating the ASEAN Spiritin Higher Education

Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta

Even before ASEAN leaders during the Summit in Kuala Lumpur in December 1997 formulated the ASEAN Vision 2020,1 higher education institutions across

the region had unified their efforts to make the ASEAN Community a reality.

The AUNThe ASEAN University Network is an association of universities established in

November 1995 with the signing of its Charter by the higher education of-ficials of six member countries. The AUN is led by a Board of Trustees, and its Secretariat is based in Chu-lalongkorn University, headed by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nantana Gajaseni as executive director. It currently has 30 universities in 10 countries, including three from the Philip-

pines—the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), and De La Salle University.2

The idea for such a network stems from the 4th ASEAN Summit of 1992. In that Summit, it was agreed that ASEAN member countries must work to promote coop-eration by enhancing awareness of ASEAN among the people in the region through the expansion of ASEAN studies as part of Southeast Asian Studies in university curricula and the introduction of ASEAN student exchange programs; to help develop a regional identity and solidarity; and to promote human resource development in the region.3 The original intent was to establish an ASEAN university, but it was ulti-mately decided that a network of existing universities would be more feasible.

According to its website (http://www.aunsec.org/index.php), the AUN’s focus was built on the ASEAN strategies in facilitating cooperation, which led to the establish-ment of four key areas—student and faculty exchanges, ASEAN studies, information networking and collaborative research.

Under the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint, the AUN is a key imple-menting agency in promoting the establishment of an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Com-munity (ASCC).4

Unity in DiversityWith 30 different universities from 10 countries of varying stages of economic

development, managing diversity can be a challenge to the AUN."From highly developed Singapore, which has two universities that often place

well in international university rankings, to countries like Laos, which only estab-lished its national university in 1996, the region is home to an eclectic collection of institutions…[C]ommentators say that the great diversity in education systems and economic development across Asia presents different challenges," noted Liz Gooch in an article for The New York Times in 2011.5

However, while AUN Executive Director Gajaseni acknowledged the diversity among ASEAN institutions, she also cited a cultural commonality. “Among the AUN universities we have the core values of working together for the benefit of the whole region,” she said in the same article.

For Dr. Rhodora Azanza, assistant vice-president for Academic Affairs and director of the Office of International Linkages of UP, unity in diversity is one of the AUN’s strengths. “The aim is really to have the different academics interact in this net-work…we want to have more of this diversity considered.” The understanding and appreciation of the cultural diversity among AUN members is precisely what is being emphasized in the student exchange program, “so that students feel that we have this ASEAN community.”

As for the differences among the AUN member universities’ stages of develop-ment, Dr. Gajaseni in the same New York Times article said the more established universities were helping the younger ones raise the overall quality of education.

As an example, Azanza cited the example of Vietnam’s universities, which, through the support of the government, are working to boost their competitiveness. “The academe [in Vietnam] is very outward-looking,” she said, adding that recently Viet-nam National University officials underwent training from university officials in UP “because they want to learn from the other universities.”

UP, on the other hand, is also learning from the National University of Singapore. “That’s why we have a cooperation (agreement) with the NUS to train educators and administrators in UP. We’re learning from each other. That’s the NUS approach—not only are we teaching you something, we will learn from you in return.”

MembershipThe original guidelines for AUN membership were based on the following criteria:

recognition of the university's status as a center of excellence in priority disciplines; faculty strength; experience in regional or international programmes; and existence of adequate laboratories, libraries and other facilities.

Under the Operational Guidelines for the Membership Enlargement of the AUN updated in 2005, new member universities must fulfill the following criteria: they must reflect a geographical balance of members in the region; they must be among the leading universities in the country/region; they must promote research and schol-arship; and they must support a global outlook.6

However, there is a limit to the number of universities that become AUN members

The ASEAN University Network


(although membership to the AUN's thematic networks is open to non-AUN members). As stated in the Operational Guidelines: "As a regional network, the number of mem-bers per country should reflect a good balance of members from each member country. There should not be a particular member country with too many member institutions, resulting in an imbalance for effective cooperation and exchange.”

Given the criteria, AUN mem-bership has become a way of gauging the quality of a coun-try’s higher education system. A Rappler article dated November 25, 2013 cites expanding the Philippines' membership to the AUN as one of eight ways Philippine higher education can prepare for the ASEAN econom-ic integration of 2015.7

“Of course, we want more [Philippine universities in the AUN], because the perception is that the best universities in ASEAN [are members], and we think that there are other universities that can measure up,” said Atty. Lily Freida T. Macabangun-Milla, director of the International Affairs Staff of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

For now, Milla asks that the three Philippine AUN member-universities "help bring the other universities up to the [standard]. It’s like a big brother-little brother thing.”

Quality Assurance“I think it’s very important

that we improve our higher education quality in order to ensure the quality of our graduates,” Gajaseni said in the same New York Times article. The AUN initiated the Quality Assurance (QA) system in 2007 as a mechanism to uplift and enhance higher education standards among its members.

Several Philippine universities that are not AUN members, including Cebu Normal University and the Philippine Normal University, have arranged to undertake the AUN-QA mechanism, encouraged and supported by the CHED.

“As director of International Affairs, I also want to find accredi-tation that is international so that we are not limited by the PAAS-CU (Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities) and PACUCOA (Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission on Accreditation),” said Milla.

“We have a long history of excellence in UP; what we need is to further enhance this,” said Azanza. “The bar of excellence must be raised, which is why we have to benchmark ourselves to the other ASEAN universities.”

The process of accreditation is not without its challenges. In UP, only a handful of programs have undergone accreditation by the AUN-QA because the process can be expensive. According to Azanza, accrediting one program can cost up to half a million pesos. Besides, the programs have to undergo internal asess-ment by UP first.

InternationalizationHowever, steps have been taken toward establishing interna-

CHED International Affairs Staff Director Lily Freida T. Macabangun-Milla

UP Assistant Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Office of International Linkages Director Rhodora Azanza



AsiaEngage

University civic engagement is today a real movement, a trend that is taking off. It is a movement still in the early

stages of development, that is characterized by immense diver-sity, and also by extraordinary vision and common approach being taken in very different contexts."

This statement was delivered in 2005 by Robert M. Hollister, founding dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Tuft University, USA, during an inter-national conference convened by the university in Talloires, France.1 It was the conclusion that emerged from a preconfer-ence survey on civic engagement conducted among 25 univer-sities from 24 countries across five regions.2

The 2005 conference created the Talloires Network, an inter-national association of higher education institutions committed to strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education. Since then, the network has grown to over 320 members in 72 countries.3

Asian Universities Move toward Civic Engagement


The fall of the ivory towerDuring the Talloires Net-

work's Global Leaders Confer-ence held in Madrid in 2011, it was noted that higher educa-tion institutions across the world are mobilizing their hu-man and intellectual resources, and increasingly finding ways to tackle community and pub-lic health problems, combating poverty, promoting environ-mental sustainability, and enhancing the quality of life. As the conference participants declared: “Many universities...are embedding civic engage-ment as a core mission along with teaching and research. Around the world, the engaged university is replacing the ivory tower.”4

However, a global university network can only do so much. Hence, the Network chose to work in collaboration with re-gional university networks that focus on engagement, recog-nizing the regional networks’ more detailed knowledge of social and economic condi-tions, the policy frameworks and the institutional cultures relevant to engagement in their own region, with the global network serving to comple-ment their strengths.

Civic engagement in ASEAN: ATNEU, AUN-

USR&S and AVYPIn October 2010, the Tal-

loires Network worked with the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) to develop the Asia-Talloires Network of Industry and Community Engaged Universities (AT-NEU). ATNEU brings together key regional stakeholders from universities, industries, NGOs, communities, and governments to catalyze sustainable partner-ships that address the social, economic and environmental challenges and improve the quality of life for communities in the region.5

The ATNEU is currently

chaired by UKM Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Industry and Community Partnerships Dr. Saran Kaur Gill. It counts among its members Dr. Nanthana Gajaseni, execu-tive director of the ASEAN University Network, and vice-presidents and directors of universities from Thailand, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Also in October 2010, the ASEAN University Network (AUN) organized the first “Workshop on University’s Social Responsibility and Sustainabil-ity from ASEAN-Japan Perspectives: Sharing and Caring for a Better Com-munity,” held at Burapha University, Thailand.6 After the workshop, a pro-posal emerged to establish the AUN-University Social Responsibility and Sustainability (AUN-USR&S) Thematic Network as a mechanism to enable AUN member universities to cooperate on initiatives and to share ideas and best practices with each other and with stakeholders both nationally and across the region.7

The ASEAN region also has a youth volunteerism platform, the ASEAN Youth Volunteers Program (AYVP), which emerged in October 2011 following the success of the ASEAN Volunteer Programme. The AYVP aims to drive youth volunteerism and community development that involve young people between the ages of 18 and 30. All AYVP projects are underpinned by respect, understanding and appreciation of ASEAN values, identity and multi-cultural diversity.8

AsiaEngage: Bringing it all togetherWith three university networks enabling civic engagement, what was needed was

a way to bring them together. Hence, during the May 7-9, 2012 Regional Confer-ence on “Higher Education-Industry-Community Engagement in Asia: Forging Meaningful Partnerships,” AsiaEngage was launched.9

Initiated by the UKM’s Office of Industry and Community Partnerships, Asia-Engage serves as the regional community-industry engagement platform of the ATNEU, AUN-USR&S, AYVP, their member-universities, and other stakeholders across the region. According to its website (http://asiaengage.org/v2/), AsiaEngage, which currently has 76 member universities from 20 countries, aims to “create op-portunities for sharing innovative industry and community engagement practices, developing a regional capacity for impactful engagement, forging collaborative industry and community-based research, and driving learning prospects as well as inspiring youth volunteerism.”

Areas for initiatives include climate change and the environment, social entre-preneurship, health, education, heritage, and technology. AsiaEngage is headed by Executive Director Dr. Saran Kaur Gill, UKM Deputy Vice-Chancellor.

Three Philippine universities so far are members of AsiaEngage: Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU), De La Salle University (DLSU), and UP. These three universities are also the only Philippine members of the AUN, and officials from the three—including UP Vice-President for Public Affairs J. Prospero De Vera—are also members of the AUN-USR&S Steering Committee. De Vera is also a member of the ATNEU Taskforce and the AYVP Steering Committee.

During the 2012 regional conference, numerous examples were given of civic engagement projects undertaken by ASEAN universities. From UP, Dr. Grace Aguiling-Dalisay presented the UP Pahinungod Volunteer Program as a model for engaged scholarship, and De Vera himself reported on the UP System’s efforts in the aftermath of Typhoon Sendong as an example of university civic engagement in disaster management.

The irony in UPClearly, awareness among Asian universities of the importance of civic engage-

ment—or public service, in UP’s case—has been growing. For De Vera, this high-lights an irony.

“UP has a very strong and historic public service role,” he said. “Under Republic Act 9500, we are the only public university that has a specific public service respon-sibility. But while we have a lot of public service activities in UP, public service is not given significant recognition in the University. We don’t incentivize it. So much effort is given to research, to publication, to teaching. Public service is seen as an afterthought.”

This is in contrast to the trend in other universities in the region, which have been actively pushing for public service and civic engagement. The University of Indo-nesia, for example, has made civic engagement one of the requirements for tenure. Both the National University of Singapore and the Universiti Brunei Darussalam al-low their students to do community work even in other countries as part of the cur-riculum for as long as six months, with the universities’ full financial support. The UKM itself was identified by the Talloires Network as a lead partner in establishing the regional network because of its institutional leadership in the areas of industry and community engagement.

“Other universities have been much more aggressive in promoting civic engage-ment and public service, and that is why they are the ones taking a leadership role

UP Vice-President for Public Affairs Prospero De Vera

Former UP Asian Center Dean Carolyn Sobritchea


THE AIMS PROGRAMME...continued from page 11

THE AUN...continued from page 12

NOTES:1 ASEAN economic community blueprint.(2008,

January).Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Retrieved from http://www.asean.org/archive/5187-10.pdf

2 AUN member universities.(n.d.).ASEAN University Network. Retrieved from http://www.aunsec.org/aunmemberuniversities.php

3 Singapore Declaration of 1992. (1992, January 28). Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Retrieved from http://www.asean.org/news/item/singapore-declaration-of-1992-singapore-28-january-1992

4 ASEAN socio-cultural community blueprint.(2009). Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Retrieved from http://www.asean.org/archive/5187-19.pdf

5 Gooch, Liz. (2011, October 30). ASEAN nations put education front and center. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/world/asia/31iht-EDUCLEDE31.html?pagewanted=all#h[]

6 Operational guidelines for the membership enlargement of the ASEAN University Network. (2005, September 1). ASEAN University Network. Retrieved from http://www.aun.chula.ac.th/Miscellanous/Operational%20Guidelines.pdf

7 Geronimo, Jee Y. (2013, November 25). 8 ways PH higher education can prepare for ASEAN 2015. Rappler. Retrieved from http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/education/44519-higher-education-sector-asean-2015-preparation

tional standards in quality assessment and accreditation.

“You have internationalization as an input to quality. Internationalization is not the goal. We have to raise the level of quality of education so that we can produce quality graduates who are also competitive,” said Milla, who stressed that all the reforms the CHED is cur-rently undertaking are also intended to prepare Philippine HEIs for ASEAN integration and globalization.

Are the three Philippine AUN mem-bers ready for an integrated ASEAN? Former dean of the UP Asian Center Dr. Carolyn Sobritchea says we are, pointing out that UP and ADMU at least have been beneficiaries of curriculum development programs for years.

Still, much needs to be done aside from boosting research productivity in UP.

“We need to undertake curricular review and reimagine our curricular pro-grams in order to prepare for the ASE-AN economic integration,” Sobritchea said, citing that most of our programs—including Philippine Studies—are based on research done in the US and Canada. There is a need to review the avail-able literature and prepare Filipinos to focus on ASEAN scholars and expertise instead of looking to the West.

For Milla, the challenges of inter-nationalizing the Philippine higher education landscape in preparation for ASEAN integration involves not just the Philippine HEIs, but the entire system, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Tourism, and all other agencies. It is also important that questionable higher education providers be dealt with, as they can bring down the country’s international reputation.

As for the AUN, “the Network should really take an active role in democratizing its membership, and encourage more universities to engage in discussions of the opportunities and challenges brought about by economic integration,” said Sobritchea. She added that the AUN can encourage its members to actively participate in tak-ing on economic integration from an academic perspective and to analyze common issues such as disaster risk mitigation and response, protection of migrant workers’ rights, and drug and sex trafficking; and to learn from the experiences of similar regional unions in Africa and Europe.--------------------Email the author at [email protected]

ASIAENGAGE...continued from page 13

NOTES:1 Civic engagement: A global movement.

(n.d.).Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Tufts University. Retrieved from http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/about/dean-rob-hollister/publications-and-presentations/civic-engagement-a-global-movement/

2 Hollister’s presentation of the survey results is found in the Talloires Conference 2005 Report, which is available at the Talloires Network website [http://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/TalloiresReport.pdf].

3 Who we are.(n.d.).The Talloires Network: Tufts University. Retrieved from http://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/who-we-ar/

4 Hollister, Robert M., Pollock, John P., Gearan, Mark, Reid, Janice, Stroud, Susan, & Babcock, Elizabeth. (2012). The Talloires Network: A global coalition of engaged universities. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 16(4), 81. Retrieved from http://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/Talloires-Network-JHEOE.pdf

5 A b o u t AT N E U . ( n . d . ) . A s i a E n g a g e : UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia. Retrieved from http://asiaengage.org/v2/about-atneu/

6 About AUN USR&S. (n.d.).AsiaEngage: UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia. Retrieved from http://www.asiaengage.org/about-aun-usrs/

7 AUN-URS&S at-a-glance.(n.d.).ASEAN University Network. Retrieved from http://www.aunsec.org/aunusrs.php

8 About the ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme. (n.d.).AsiaEngage: UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia. Retrieved from http://asiaengage.org/v2/about-the-asean-youth-volunteer-programme/

9 About AsiaEngage.(n.d.).AsiaEngage: UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia. Retrieved from http://asiaengage.org/v2/about-asiaengage/

in civic engagement. So even if we’ve had a longer history and tradition of public service, we’re a little behind them currently,” De Vera said.

“We still need to do a lot of things with public service in this university. I’m not saying that public service should be given more importance than research [or teaching], but there should be a balance... In [RA 9500], all of these roles are important, but in our policies, public service is given less importance.”

Engaging with engaged universities

When it comes to pushing for the recognition of public service, policy-wise, UP’s membership in AsiaEngage is a step in the right direction.

“We’re able to gain from the experi-ences of the other universities, and we’re also able to share our activities,” De Vera said.

Information exchanges and the promotion of inter-university public service activities can be conducted through the regional platform. This will enable UP and other Philippine universities to learn from other Asian universities and vice-versa, such as in the case of disaster risk management and climate-change adaptation.

For instance, universities, even those from countries not normally hit by disasters, “can go to UP and learn firsthand by actually going to a disaster area,” De Vera added. He foresees the potential of the new UP Visayas Tacloban campus, which will rise in the new site in Sta. Elena, to serve as a model campus on disaster risk manage-ment and climate-change resilience.

“That can be one direction for UPV Tacloban, because you cannot have a better laboratory than that area.”

Asia Engaging: Challenges and possibilities

For De Vera, the challenge for UP is “really in terms of how committed the University is to fully internationalize.” Internationalization requires plenty of resources, which other national universities in the region receive in the form of higher subsidies from their governments. Acquiring the resources to internationalize—to build facilities such as dormitories and laboratories, to nurture and produce PhDs among the faculty, and to support world-class research that would attract collabora-tions with other universities—must be UP’s priority.

In addition, doing public service re-

quires resources for transportation and lodging needs of students doing com-munity work, and to free up the time of the faculty to do public service.

As for AsiaEngage, “I think the chal-lenge is not in the openness and desire for public service,” De Vera said. “The challenge is really the cultural differences when you go to the com-munities,” because there are ethical concerns to consider when engaging communities.

AsiaEngage can serve as a mecha-nism for universities and other stake-holders—the communities, NGOs, governments and industry partners—to share lessons and experiences. Through AsiaEngage, the rules and protocols for doing community work within the region can also be devel-oped and shared.

“If UP continues to be actively in-volved, and if we get more Philippine universities to be involved [in AsiaEn-gage], then the future will be bright,” said De Vera.

“Many of the universities in the re-gion actually look up to UP because of our long experience in public service and very meaningful public service initiatives. We have an opportunity to show a model for all other universities in the region for national government.”--------------------Email the author at [email protected].

Members of the ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme, which include UP officials, hold a workshop for the development of a strategic roadmap for productive and sustainable knowledge-driven, sports and post-disaster recovery volunteerism for AYVP in 2012 at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Similarly, Japan, the most recent country to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with SEAMEO RIHED, has seen a recent rise in students studying at universities outside the US. More than 37, 000 were recorded in 2010, while the total number of foreign students in Japan numbered nearly 140, 000 that same year.

The Philippines, according to data presented by Director III Atty. Lily Freida Macabangun-Milla of the Commission on Higher Education, has some ways to go before catching up with some of its neighbours. It record-ed a total of 7,785 foreign students for 2012-2013.The country has five universities in the AIMS Pro-gram: UP, Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle, the University of Santo Tomas and Saint Louis University.

Since its inception, the AIMS program has identified the differ-ent academic calendars among universities in partner countries as a "key challenge." This was initially dealt with by aligning programs as closely as possible and being flexible with student commencement times. Likewise, a press release by UP clearly identified the June-May academic calendar as a "major reason" for the considerable challenges the university faced in this area.

This year, UP, together with other AIMS Program member universities in the Philippines, decided to shift the beginning of its academic calendar to August in 2015.

This shift is believed to help lay the groundwork for increasing stu-dent and faculty mobility between UP and its regional counterparts. In a statement, Pascual said the shift "will create more joint pro-grams and partnerships with other universities, allow students to get transfer credits, particularly under ASEAN and ASEAN +3 Credit Transfer System (ACTS), and ad-dress the problem with semestral gaps with partner universities.”

These initiatives form a counterpoint to CHED’s current strategies, which include the en-hancement of student, faculty and staff mobility; as well as the estab-lishment of a quality assurance framework to strengthen more than 1,800 Philippine HEIs as part of its push to “(make) education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competi-tiveness.”

Truly International and Global

Like his counterparts, UP President Alfredo E. Pascual said that he too has “big dreams for the University of the Philippines.”

In its Roadmap for Interna-tionalization, UP is banking on a three-pronged approach. This includes the improvement of the understanding by the UP com-munity of the value of internation-alization, increasing its visibility and interaction with the interna-tional community, and developing sustainable internationalization



UP System Information Of f ice Mezzanine Floor, Quezon Hal l , UP Di l iman, Quezon City Telefax 926-1572, t runkl ine 981-8500 loc. 2552, 2549, e-mai l : [email protected]

The UP FORUMJ. Prospero E. De Vera III

Editor-in-Chief

Frances M. CabanaEditor

Flora B. Cabangis Managing Editor

Luis V. TeodoroCopy Editor

Arbeen R. Acuña Graphic Artist


Layout Artist

KIM G. QuilinguingWebmaster: Forum Online

Sol R. BarcebalResearcher

Bong Q. Arboleda Misael A. Bacani

Jun M. MadridPhotographers

Cristy M. Salvador Obet G. Eugenio Alice B. Abear

Tom M. Maglaya Victor D. Imbuido

Administrative Staff

Prof. Luis V. TeodoroUP College of Mass

Communication

Dr. Dante M. VelascoUP College of Mass

Communication

Sec. Gen. Marilyn B. Barua-YapHouse of Representatives

BOARD OF ADVISERSDr. Clarita R. CarlosUP College of Social Sci-

ences and Philosophy

Dr. Edna A. CoUP National College of Public Administration

and Governance

Dr. Emil Q. JavierUP President (1993-1999)

Dr. Orlando S. MercadoUP National College of Public Administration

and Governance

Dr. Jaime Galvez-TanUP College of Medicine

Sec. Oscar G. YabesSenate of the Philippines

MUTUAL RECOGNITION OF UNIVERSITY DEGREES...continued from page 16

RATES OF CHANGE...continued from page 9

licenses obtained. The Commission on Higher Educa-

tion (CHED) is the body that recognizes university degrees while the Profes-sional Regulation Commission issues and recognizes professional licenses in the Philippines.

On the basis of the provisions of the MRA, the professional licenses of Fili-pino professionals will get recognition from PRAs. For foreigners planning to come to the country, the Professional Regulation Commission and the Profes-sional Regulatory Boards will assess their qualifications and issue special temporary permits.

Can a Filipino student enrolled in a Philippine university enroll in another ASEAN university? Yes, the Commis-sion on Higher Education has supported various initiatives in support of region-alization and the internationalization of higher education. One is the ASEAN University Network of which the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and De la Salle University are members. Students of these universities may spend some time in other ASEAN member universi-ties through the AUN Credit Transfer System.

Another is the University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific (UMAP) with 18 full members, including the Philippines, which will enhance mobility of students through UMAP Credit Transfer Scheme.

There are also 12 member universi-ties from the Philippines in the ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Program. Starting in schoolyear

Arbeen R. Acuña

Stephanie S. Cabigao

Andre Encarnacion


Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo

Writers

THE AIMS PROGRAMME...continued from page 14

2014-2015, students from these univer-sities will be able to participate in the student mobility programs of the AIMS.

The last regional initiative that will help recognition of qualifications, and enhancement of learner and worker mobility is the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework. This is the common regional framework that will enable comparison among the differ-ent national qualifications frameworks of the ASEAN countries. It strongly supports quality assurance among education and training providers mak-ing it easier for students of the different higher education institutions to partici-pate in the regional programs aimed at learner mobility.

In summary, ASEAN Integration, with various efforts being pushed and undertaken in the field of recognition of university degrees and qualifications including professional licenses, will result in enhanced mobility of students and professionals in the region. The ASEAN MRA, in particular, contains criteria for the recognition and eligibili-ty of foreign practitioners, a mechanism for their recognition, and the monitor-ing and evaluation of their performance and conduct. These could be applied in other professions which, at the present time, do not have mutual recognition arrangements.--------------------Atty. Teresita Manzala is the chairperson of the Professional Regulation Commision. She earned her AB Political Science and Master of Public Administration from UP. Email her at [email protected].

programs and infrastructure.“I envision UP as a national university that embodies the qualities of a truly interna-

tional and global university.”Such a university, Pascual said, is one that has an “international reputation for

teaching and research,” produces “the best graduates, including international stu-dents,” and with a “long history of superior advancement.” Also important are a sys-tem of sound financial management, the best staff and major contributions to society.

Despite the constraints inherent in the process of change, Pascual believes that these should not deter policymakers from pursuing the “necessary, even radical reforms” to make ASEAN universities at par with the world’s best.

Fortunately, there has been a strong response to this call. Since 2011 UP has sig-nificantly increased its budget for research, provided funding for the completion of the National Engineering Complex and the National Science Complex, and increased scholarship for faculty members pursuing their PhDs. A new UP Los Baños Interna-tional Student Center and a P1 billion National Institutes for Health (NIH) facility in UP Manila will be built this year to complement its student-mobility partnerships.

“We must remember,” he said, “that oftentimes the biggest obstacles are the barriers in our minds. With our expertise, with committed national leadership, and with strong regional partnerships, there are no obstacles formidable enough to stand in our way.”--------------------Email the author at [email protected].

more difficult. "My analogy here is the Swiss knife. Hindi lang po ako screwdriver, but there are

other skills that I have learned because of this broad base of the liberal arts and basic education. And it is important, I think, to be flexible."

The last challenge is that of geo-hazards. "In view of a more uncertain and perilous world we will need greater competence in assessing and reducing risks," said Villarin. "A better understanding of the nature of risks includes knowing our exposure, our vul-nerability."

"Climate change is not just an ASEAN phenomenon, it’s a global phenomenon. And therefore we need to be concerned. Not just with Vietnam… We have to be concerned with Africa, we have to be concerned with Latin America. This is a global thing and we have to come together."

"In closing," Villarin said, "the gearing up or preparation we need will have to deal with these five challenges. The quality of that preparation, the appropriateness of our response will determine the extent of our advancement or stagnation in the regional and global arena. Gone are the days when regional alliances in the global stage were just an option.

"We can only disengage at our peril."

Hugging Each Other at the BottomIt became clear as the conference proceeded that while both Pascual and Villarin be-

lieved that factors such as increased funding for HEIs and the adoption of new technolo-gies played a central role in preparing for internationalization, the battle would be won not in board rooms or laboratories.

The key to victory, they seemed to suggest, is to be found in the Filipino mind."The problem that we all face is never how to get new innovative thoughts in our

minds," Pascual said, paraphrasing American businessman Dee Hock. "We are all full of

Residents of the UP Diliman International Center hold flag ceremony at Quezon Hall.

thoughts. But how to get old ones out."To make his point clear, Pascual

used the case of Vietnam to highlight how far adrift higher education in the Philippines has found itself in a number of key aspects. "Look at Vietnam," he said, "which was ravaged by so many wars. We have a two-decade head start. The war that ravaged the Philippines ended in 1945; in their case it was in the late 1960s."

"Vietnam already beats us in terms of publication. In terms of embracing internationalization, they’re very much ahead of us. Their national university has set up a number of satellite univer-sities. They now have the likes of Ho Chi Minh International University, of-fering international university degrees. They’re all focused on fields that are needed now."

"Which universities here offer a de-

gree in biomedical engineering? (Or) in financial engineering?" Pascual asked. "None, not even UP." Even in the arena of joint programs, Pascual claims that UP is late for the party.

While there are now joint programs being formalized with foreign universities, UP has for so long been offering only dual degrees, where degrees are conferred separately.

When the Philippine-California Advanced Research Institutes (PCARI) was instituted by the Commission on Higher Education, Pascual said they encountered strong resis-tance from certain sectors. "We must allow programs that will operate under non-tradi-tional rules to go ahead so we can have stars to hitch our wagons."

The only hope for Philippine higher education to progress faster, he believes, is to let go of the so called "crab mentality."

"We are all happy hugging each other at the bottom," he said. "I think we should now allow some of us to rise, support institutions that are ready, so there would be an engine that can pull the others forward, so that there would be a model that others can follow."

Pascual ended with a quote from former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. This, it appeared, summed up his views on how ignoring the lessons and opportunities of the changing times could spell disaster, even for the great-est of the country's institutions:

"When the rate of change on the out-side exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight."-------------------Email the author at [email protected].


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Valid until June 30, 2014Subject to Postal Inspection (for printed matter only)

THE UP FORUMUniversity of the PhilippinesDiliman, Quezon City, Philippines, 1101

In 2015, the ten ASEAN countries will establish the ASEAN Integration. In this context, the ASEAN

Economic Community Blueprint will be implemented, featuring a single market and production base, charac-terized by free flow of professionals and skilled work-ers, among other things. ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangements are in different stages of development and cover the following fields:

1. Engineering2. Nursing3. Surveying4. Architecture5. Dentistry6. Medicine7. AccountancyHow will the university degrees or professional licens-

es of Filipino students or professionals be recognized or treated in other countries? How would the credits of students or graduates of a postgraduate program from Philippine universities be recognized by ASEAN univer-sities or vice versa?

Recognition of University Degrees and Professional Licenses

Mutual Recognition of University Degreesand Professional Licenses in the Context of ASEAN Integration and Internationalization

Teresita R. Manzala


A good working model of the mutual recognition of these qualifications is found in the European Union directive 2005/36/EC of the European Parliament. In principle, an applicant may submit documents to the appropriate or competent authority in one country, and have his qualifications assessed, although there is a need to obtain country-specific information for recognition of degrees.

ENIC-NARIC NetworkIn 1994, the European Council and the UNESCO established the European Net-

work of National Information Centres (ENIC) on academic recognition and mobility. An ENIC generally provides information on:

1. the recognition of foreign diplomas, degrees and other qualifications2. education systems in both foreign countries and ENIC’s own country3. opportunities for studying abroad as well as advice on practical questions related

to mobility and equivalenceThere are also National Academic Recognition Information Centres (NARIC),

designated by each country’s Ministry of Education, which provide comparisons of academic qualifications.

ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) and the ASEAN MRAsThe ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) was signed by ASEAN

Economic Ministers in 1995, and contains Article V, which states that “ASEAN Member States may recognize the education or experience obtained, requirements met, or licenses or certifications granted in another ASEAN Member State, for the purpose of licensing or certification of service suppliers”.

The ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) contain the list of Profes-sional Regulatory Authorities (PRA). A PRA is a body authorized by each ASEAN Member State government to regulate and control practitioners and their practice of the profession. These are the bodies that recognize qualifications and professional licenses.

Article III of each MRA on Recognition and Eligibility of Foreign Practitioners states that “A foreign practitioner may apply for registration in the host country in accordance with its Domestic Regulations and comply with the following:

1. Possession of a qualification recognized by the PRA of the country of origin and host country

2. Possession of a valid professional registration and current practising certificate to practice the profession issued by the PRA of the country of origin

3. Be in active practice in the country of origin for: Engineering/Architecture: 7 years Medicine/Dentistry: 5 years Nursing: 3 years

4. Compliance with CPD requirement at satisfactory level in accordance with the policy on CPD mandated by the PRA of the country of origin

5. Certification by the PRA of the country of origin as not having violated any professional or ethical standards, local and international

6. Declaration that there is no investigation or legal proceeding pending against him/her in the country of origin or another country

7. Compliance with any other assessment or requirement as may be imposed on any such applicant for registration as deemed fit by the PRA or other relevant authorities of the host country

Article IV. Professional Regulatory Authority of the MRA provides that subject to Domestic Regulations, the PRA of the host country shall:

1. evaluate the qualifications, training and experience of the foreign practitioners2. impose any other requirement or assessment where applicable3. grant recognition and register eligible foreign practitioner to practice the profes-

sion in the host country4. monitor and assess compliance of the registered foreign practitioners’ practice

and conduct in accordance with the Professional and Ethical Codes of Conduct and standards of practice of the host country

5. take necessary action in the event any registered foreign practitioner failed to practice in accordance with the Professional and Ethical Codes of Conduct and standards of practice of the host country

The MRA document Article V. Right to Regulate, rules that the MRA shall not reduce, eliminate or modify the rights, power and authority of each ASEAN Member State (AMS), its PRA and other relevant authorities to regulate and control practitio-ners in the practice of the profession. AMSs, however, should exercise their regula-tion without creating unnecessary barriers to the practice of the profession.

The qualifications recognition process of the AMS entails submission of authenti-cated documents, including certificates of the degree earned, training, experience and

Photo from the PRC

UP Forum May-June 2014

Documents

Transcript of UP Forum May-June 2014