Asean Integration and K-12 program
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 By Ver F. Pacete As I See It WE BELONG to the Asean region. The 10
member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are the Philippines,
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. In
2003, these countries agreed to integrate their economies. In 2007, the members of the Asean
countries approved a “blueprint” to guide each member on initiatives and measures to achieve
regional integration which is scheduled for 2015. Asean integration allows its member-countries
(and the citizens of those countries) to join in the free flow of capital, labor, services, goods, and
foreign investments. For the Philippines, this is a big challenge because integration will also
mean that Asean members will pay less tax, less custom duties, and less import taxes. This
pattern follows the European Common Market (European Union). In our case we will also have
the Asean Common Market. The Philippines (as a member) will consider people and products
from the Asean region, as if they are people and products of our country also. This is good for
Filipinos because there will be a wider door for job markets in the region. But then, the job
market will be tougher. We have to compete with other qualified applicants from the region. We
have already proven in the past (before Asean integration) that Filipinos can best adapt to
multicultural workplaces. We are good in English. (I would like to believe that.) Now, I will go
to this controversial issue. That could also be the reason why we have this regional community
approach to integration of education in the region. This could be the reason why the K to 12
Program has been instituted so that we can level off with Asean and the rest of the world. (I am
not just sure if our expert planners in education and also our Congress have made a careful study
before the implementation of the program.) Keen observers say that there is the synchronization
of the academic calendar of Asean universities to accommodate the mobility of the faculty and
students within the region. Look at this, only the Philippines has its school opening in June. Most
universities in Japan, Korea, China, and North America start their academic calendar in August
or September. Sen. Miriam Santiago said, “The synchronization of the academic calendar of the
Philippine universities with most Asean, European, and American academic partners will create
more joint programs and partnerships with other universities and allow students to get transfer
credits from different universities in the Asean.” The strengthening of our universities is a
necessity because we want to compete with the world as global athletes, not just barangay
warriors. That could be the reason why we should involve the Department of Education,
Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and
the Department of Labor and Employment to have that assurance that our training, skills,
subjects, and courses would fit competition in the world market. I know that our K to 12
Program has more lapses and creates problems. That is why government experts (if we have
experts) should come in and look into the program with cyclonic eyes, and reconstruct or
improve our system of education in the country. Let us not give rooms for doubt to our parents
and educators that the people upstairs who are in-charge simply ponder. When there is trouble,
they delegate. When they are in doubt, they mumble. In our province, we only identify few
specialist schools for Technical-Vocational, School of the Arts, Agriculture, Fisheries,
Information Technology, and Tourism. How about our secondary schools in coastal areas and
upland barangays which are far away from pilot schools? I also know that some basic problems
have not been answered…lack of classrooms, books, working tools and equipment, laboratory
facilities, and competent teachers. I know that our colleges and universities in Bacolod and
Negros Occidental have problems. Solve your problems (easier said than done) and get ready (if
not ready yet) for Asean integration. Make inventory of your desirable assets: qualified
administrative staff; experienced educators and mentors; internationally responsive academic
programs; school buildings with classrooms equipped with state-of-the-art technology; and a
beautiful and world-class campus conducive to teaching-learning activities. Let us show the
world that our institutions of learning are geared towards total human growth, spiritual
development, and economic uplift. (You can add more.) All these will attract foreign students
and scholars. This will also convince Filipino students to patronize their own colleges and
universities.
Read more: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/bacolod/opinion/2015/04/21/asean-integration-and-k-12-
program-403520
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SEAN Integration and Quality Assurance
Posted on October 16, 2014 by Dr. Marilou G. Nicolas in ASEAN Integration, UP Forum
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Dr. Marilou Nicolas
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 Community consists of three (3) pillars with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)
as the goal for economic 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 production base, a highly competitive economic
region, a region of equitable economic development, 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 recognition agreements (MRA) for various services including accountancy, tourism,
engineering, architecture, medical, nursing and dental practices and other professional services
by 2015. It also mandated the ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) to enhance cooperation
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 mobility 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 education, 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 ASEAN 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 development of an ASEAN
competency-based occupational standards for benchmarking in connection with mutual
recognition. The ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) will enable comparisons
of qualifications to help in cross-border skills recognition and human resource development for
other services as well.
What is quality assurance?
The UNESCO Regional Report of Asia and the Pacific defines quality assurance in higher
education as the systematic management and assessment procedures to monitor performance of
higher education institutions. Quality considers all aspects of education—from teaching and
academic study programmes, research and scholarship, staffing, students, infrastructure and
facilities, services to the community and the academic environment. Internal self-evaluation and
external review, conducted openly by independent specialists, if possible with international
expertise, are vital for enhancing quality.
The UNESCO General Education Quality Analysis/Diagnosis Framework (GEQAF) describes
four key elements (conceptual framework shown below) that are interactive and iterative to
enable 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 development 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
competencies 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.
A conceptual framework of the key elements of the UNESCO GEQAF
The country’s vision and development 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, academic staff, students and learning environment—that must be
put in place to support the main purpose of education. (See Figure 1.)
A continuous review of development goals vis a vis world and regional developments also
necessitates continuous 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 education for the 21st century, which presents 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 sociocultural and
economic development, and for building the future with a new generation of young professionals
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 education institutions”; and (2) the challenges of financing
educational institutions, political patronage and shifting priorities of administrations, which can
affect the quality of higher education institutions.
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 growing
number of regional and international integration processes. This raises the need for more
effective mechanisms for the professional recognition of higher education credentials.”
The ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) describes quality assurance as the systematic,
structured and continuous attention to quality in terms of maintaining 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 AUN 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 practices based on an empirical approach where quality assurance practices are shared,
tested, evaluated, and improved.” (Source: ASEAN Universities Network Quality Assurance:
Guide to AUN Actual Quality Assessment at Programme Level)
Tasked with providing the mechanism to facilitate the mobility of students and staff within the
region, the ASEAN University Network (AUN) members undertook assurance of quality
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 tactical (program level QA)
dimensions. The models are applicable to the diverse character of the AUN member universities
and are aligned to both regional and international quality assurance frameworks.
The AUN-QA models also recognize that quality in higher education is multidimensional and
should embrace all its functions and activities such as teaching, research, staffing, students,
academic programmes, infrastructure and the academic environment with special attention to
specific institutional, national and regional contexts to take into account diversity in the region
and avoid uniformity.
Quality assurance in the AUN contexts takes into consideration accountability that is related to
processes—i.e., whether minimum standards are in place, and development that is related to
academic developmental goals anchored 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 programme has policies and mechanisms in
place to make sure that it is meeting its own objectives and standards.” It focuses 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 objectives),
(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) stakeholders
feedback, (14) output, and (15) stakeholders satisfaction.
The making of the SAR is time-consuming and should involve all the staff and personnel. It
looks for and discovers information that exists but has not been documented or compiled and
allows 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, operations, systems or
programmes of the institution to determine if they meet the agreed upon standards.
The PDCA or Deming cycle of quality assessment
“The purpose of the assessment is not about the assessment ratings but rather the continuous
improvement of the QA system implemented. As the assessment will be based mostly on
objective evidences, it is important that the university has prepared a well written SAR and get
ready all key documents and records for assessment. This document will allow assessors to look
at the history of the program, the performance 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 Deming cycle as shown in Figure 2.
ASEAN Integration will bring about (1) greater mobility of human resources, (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 resulted in changing demands
for skills in industries particularly in IT, health and services. In response to these dynamics, 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 educational systems, the teaching methodologies 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 with 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 institutions of about 12 million students in 10 nations. ASEAN is envisioning a
Common Space of Higher Education in Southeast Asia, very similar to the European Higher
Education Area created through the Bologna Accords.
Already student mobility through the ASEAN credit transfer system is being implemented with
member home universities committing 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 (Cambodia, 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 staying in Asia or near their home countries
as so-called “glocal” students. Thus various ASEAN governments have poured in logistics and
financial support to their universities to strengthen the performance of their academic programs
in the area of teaching, research and innovation.
Competitiveness indicators are being used to assess programs and graduates. ASEAN will
become a marketplace for globally competitive graduates seeking employment 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 universities. Thus, through
the years, there has been no incentive among its faculty and programmes about quality and
continuous 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 evaluating existing
ones for relevance, quality and sustainability even if new programs are scrutinized by various
committees and bodies such as the university curriculum committees and the university councils.
In the changing educational landscape, curricular review to incorporate changes to make our
programs regionally, if not globally competitive, must be undertaken. Tracer studies, exit
interviews, industry partnerships and stakeholders feedback—quality assurance 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 emphasizing innovation
rather than pure teaching are important 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, emphasizing quality and development of soft
skills such as communication, flexibility, initiative and ability to work with a team.
The national qualifications framework should align higher education 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 occupational 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, perceptions, credibility, and influence.
The building of an ASEAN Community 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 countries. Thus we should anticipate and prepare for greater
partnerships or joint programs and research collaborations. And while the shift in academic
calendar is a first step to providing an enabling mechanism for regional mobility, 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 assurance 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
processes. The preliminary results which were presented showed that these programmes more
than adequately meet the AUN-QA criteria of quality.
Quality assurance, however, cannot be implemented without the involvement of the entire
system, thus the need for total quality management (TQM). Quality assurance starts with the
leadership understanding what desired outcomes of the educational processes are envisioned,
including these outcomes in the planning, focusing on providing 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.
The Baldridge model for performance excellence in education. Source: 2011-2012 Education
criteria for performance excellence
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.
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
expected 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 experts from ASEAN and Europe, under the ASEAN-QAct
will be conducted on July 9-11 for administrators, i.e., System officials, chancellors, vice
chancellors, deans and faculties undergoing or intending to undergo QA assessment.
In summary, quality assurance is primarily 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 stakeholders for quality education and training.
Quality assurance is a guarantee to various stakeholders, students and employers 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 Chemistry, MS
in Biochemistry and PhD in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from UP. Email her at
malou69_99@yahoo.com.
