THE ROLES OF COMMUNICATION EDUCATION IN PROMOTING ASEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY: A MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVE

1. THE ROLES OF COMMUNICATION EDUCATION IN PROMOTING ASEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY: A MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVE INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ASEAN COMMUNITY 2015: CHALLENGES FOR COMMUNICATION EDUCATION BY PROF DR ADNAN HUSSEIN UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA 4 JUN 2013

2. OUTLINE • The ASEAN Community – An Introduction • ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Blueprint • The Role of Higher Education • Education Networks • Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) • ASEAN University Network (ANU) • Trends of Global Education: Challenges • Communication Studies in Malaysia • Moving Forward • Conclusion

3. ASEAN COMMUNITY: AN INTRODUCTION • The ASEAN Leaders adopted the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II (Bali Concord II) in Bali, Indonesia on 7 October 2003 to establish an ASEAN Community by 2020. • ASEAN Community Goals • The ASEAN Community shall be established comprising three pillars, namely political and security community, economic community, and socio-cultural community that are closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing for the purpose of ensuring durable peace, stability, and shared prosperity in the region. • To support this ASEAN is proactively and harmoniously guiding policies to expand access to benefits in area of human, cultural and natural resources.

4. ASEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY: THE BLUE PRINT • In 2009, a blueprint was agreed upon, setting out strategic objectives to build a caring, sharing and inclusive society with the well being, livelihood and welfare of the people are in our hearts. • A central feature of this, rest in human resources development, social welfare and protections, social justice and rights, ensuring environmental sustainability, building the ASEAN identity and narrowing the development gap. • Through the cooperation areas of education, sports, cultural and arts, information, labour, food, women, civil services, and science and technology, proposal for providing the regions human capital needs, now and into the future, are shared and plan are drawn up for region-wide implementation. • Also implemented are a wide range of cooperation in social welfare and development, health, disaster management, ran down the haze, pollution, environment and rural, development and poverty eradication

5. ASEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY: THE BLUE PRINT • For the ASEAN socio-cultural community, policy and programmes must be people oriented, and socially responsible and aim at achieving enduring solidarity among the people and member states of ASEAN • The ASEAN Socio-cultural envisioned an ASEAN community, and identified with high human development, strong social justice and narrowed development gap, good social welfare, and environmentally sustainability. • Overall, for ASEAN to be an effective fulcrum for the region’s architecture for cooperation and coordination ASEAN strive to into account all elements, views, concerns and needs.

6. ASEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY: THE BLUE PRINT • The 13th ASEAN Summit • Formulate and adopt The ASCC Blueprint ensures that concrete actions are undertaken to promote the establishment of an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community • ASCC Education Objectives: • creating a knowledge based society; • achieving universal access to primary education; • promoting early child care and development; and enhancing awareness of ASEAN to youths through education and activities to build an ASEAN identity based on friendship and cooperation.

7. ASEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY: THE BLUE PRINT • Actions • in close collaboration with the Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and the ASEAN University Network (AUN); • Promote and continue education networking in various levels of educational institutions; • Enhance and support student and staff exchanges and professional interactions; • Create research clusters among ASEAN institutions of higher learning; and • Strengthen collaboration with other regional and international educational organisations to enhance the quality of education in the region;

8. ASEAN COMMUNITY, THE PILLARS & THE PLATFORM ASEAN COMMUNITY EDUCATION NETWORKS HIGHER EDUCATION

9. THE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • Education underpins ASEAN community building • It lies at the core of ASEAN’s development process, creating a knowledge-based society and contributing to the enhancement of ASEAN competitiveness. • Education as the vehicle to raise ASEAN awareness, inspire the “we feeling”, and create a sense of belonging to the ASEAN Community and understanding of the richness of ASEAN’s history, languages, culture and common values.

10. THE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • Higher education goals in ASEAN countries should strive towards better understanding, promoting sense of ASEANness, sharing of knowledge and expertise, creating and promoting common core values and cultural practices, creating harmonious and stable countries, respect the sovereignty of each individual country, greater sharing of cultural products and artifact, through communication channels • Good and adequate knowledge of the diverse cultural practices and beliefs.

11. THE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • At the 11th Summit in December 2005 • to enhance regional cooperation in education, the ASEAN Education Ministers identified four priorities that ASEAN cooperation on education would address • (i) Promoting ASEAN Awareness among ASEAN citizens, particularly youth; • (ii) Strengthening ASEAN identity through education; • (iii) Building ASEAN human resources in the field of education; and • (iv) Strengthening ASEAN University Networking.

12. ASEAN EDUCATION NETWORKS • Higher education needs to move beyond national borders. • The priorities of ASEAN cooperation on education would be undertaken through collaboration with Southeast Asian Ministers’ of Education Organisation (SEAMEO).

13. ASEAN EDUCATION NETWORKS • Cross-Border Higher Education • Higher education needs to move beyond national borders. • Requires cooperation between countries and agreements between universities • Use ASEAN dimensions as platform to develop cross-border education initiatives • Regional Credit Transfer System (SEA-CTS) • Regulation / recognition framework should be developed • Organizing summer workshops for academic exchange on academic topics.

14. ASEAN EDUCATION NETWORKS • Research and Innovation Collaboration between competent research teams from multiple universities National and international networking • Key Capacity Building needs quality assurance training • Intergovernmental Organisations • Establish ASEAN standards for HEI’s including curriculum, equipment and facilities • Revise curriculum and delivery modes in all programmes to meet labour market needs • Promote academic exchange and student mobility • Develop regional quality control and assurance system Introduce a mechanism for good governance and management of higher education

15. ASEAN EDUCATION NETWORKS • The ASEAN University Network (AUN) • The AUN was established to serve as an ASEAN mechanism to • Promote cooperation among ASEAN scholars, academicians, and scientists in the region; • Develop academic and professional human resource in the region; • Promote information dissemination among the ASEAN academic community; and, (iv) Enhance the awareness of regional identity and the sense of ‘ASEANness’ among members (www.aun-sec.org)

16. Trends of Global Education Thrusts • Common Higher Education Challenges in Southeast Asia • Generally `young’ universities with very limited teaching experience • Ensuring equitable access for all students • Geographic spread and diversity of universities • Limited research expertise • cope with meeting demand, need for infrastructure, larger teaching corps. • Increasing competition for scarce resources, ranking, decline in academic community. • Policies and projects to respond to globalisation including mobility projects, branch campuses overseas and inter-institutional partnerships • English as the dominant language • Benchmarks and standards required to properly evaluate unfamiliar foreign qualifications

17. Trends Of Global Education Thrusts • Mobility • More than 2.5 million students studying out of their home country, estimated at 7 million by 2020. • Mostly South-North phenomenon. • Challenge of making mobility available to all, to ensure equity. • Call to expand programmes to include vocational placements and lecturer programmes.

18. Trends Of Global Education: Challenges • Teaching, Learning & Curriculum • Developing nations require specialists trained for science and technology and strong leaders with generalist knowledge who are creative and adaptable. • Teaching and learning has a direct impact on completion rates. • New professional related fields and diverse student populations require academic support and innovative pedagogy.

19. Trends Of Global Education: Challenges • Quality Quality assurance, accountability and qualification frameworks • The need for internationally recognised standards among and between nations has become urgent. • Explosive growth of providers raises questions in regards to quality. • Mobility has made comparability of qualifications a key area to be identified. • Need to integrate national, regional and international efforts. • Financing • public-good versus private-good debate • Education viewed as a major engine of economic development, so seen as a public good. • Governments can no longer keep up with demand, and provide free education. • Increasingly seen as a private good, as individual students benefit, so they are being asked to contribute. • Growing emphasis on cost recovery.

20. Trends Of Global Education: Challenges • The Private Revolution • 30% of global higher education enrolment globally is in private institutions. • The privatisation of public universities. HEIs are being asked to earn more of their operating expenditure. • Can contribute to commercialisation and conflict with traditional university roles.

21. Communication Studies in Malaysia • Higher Education in Malaysia • Mixture of public and private universities, colleges, foreign universities, polytechnics, and community colleges • Aiming for World Class Status by 2020 • 7 Strategic Thrusts: • widening access and equity • improving quality of teaching and learning • Enhancing research and innovation • Strengthening higher education institutions • Intensifying internationalisation • Enculturation of lifelong learning • Reinforcing delivery systems of the Ministry

22. Communication Studies in Malaysia • MALAYSIA suffered some setbacks with the breaking up of ministry of education and minitsry of higher education. • SEAMEO is an initiative under the care of Ministry of Education. Hence the focus is mainly limited to primary and secondary education. • Malaysian communication studies has not reacted positively to the ASEAN Community vision, as it did Malaysian development goals in the early 1970s. • Given that the 1970s was a period of rebuilding in Malaysia, and a particular conception of media role in development was the dominant orthodoxy (Programme Standards: Media and Communication Studies, MQA, 2013). • No serious initiatives to incorporate ASEAN in the syllabus to promote ASEAN Awareness.

23. Communication Studies in Malaysia • The recently concluded workshop on Malaysian standard of communication studies programme, made no particular mention about the need of Malaysian communication studies curriculum to incorporate ASEAN Community spirit.

24. Standard Communication Programme Structure

27. MOVING FORWARD • Building ASEAN human resources in higher education, in particular among communication scholars and practioners. • In line with ASEAN Education minister’s meeting in 2005, education sector in all ASEAN countries should have ASEAN community in their high education curriculum. For instance, in the field of media and communication studies, subjects on intercultural communication, communication and culture, international communications, should focus or given special emphasis on ASEAN cases, research etc. • Promoting Asian/ASEAN values • Knowledge on cultural practices, history, languages and common values practiced in the ASEAN member countries • There is no doubt that education, will be the most important deciding factor on the success of the ASEAN Community vision. • Ultimately, it is the quality of its education, and probably not its economic strengths, that will define what sort of ASEAN as a community will be like in the year 2020.

28. MOVING FORWARD • Through ASEAN University Network, dean/head of faculty/schools/programmes, and scholars of communication in ASEAN countries, formulate a common courses on ASEAN communication studies. • Training workshop on communication-related professional practices • Collaborative ASEAN research • Teaching modules on ASEAN values

29. THE CHALLENGE Harvard’s President Charles Eliot “... a university, in any worthy sense of theterm, must grow from seed. It cannot be transplanted from England or Germany (United States) in full leaf and bearing. ... When the American (Asia Pacific)university appears, it will not be a copy of foreign institutions, or a hot-bed plant,but the slow and natural outgrowth of American (Asia Pacific) social andpolitical habits... The American (Asia Pacific) college is an institution without a parallel; the American (Asia Pacific) university will be equally original…” Quoted by Da HsuanFeng (2013) Senior Vice President, Global Strategy, Planning and Evaluation National TsingHua University, Hsinchu

30. TerimaKasih Maramingsalamat KobKhunKhrab Cámơn Aw ko-oon Khawpjai Chezuba Thank You