IZN of Higher Education Platform (1)

You can tell from my subject with (1) to show I'll write more than once about it ka.

For the past two days, I had an opportunity to participate in the very first Internationalization of Higher Education Platform (IZNHEP), organized by OHEC and Mahidol University, aiming at sharing and discussing futuristic issues and IZN.

Here are what I've learned from the first keynote speaker ka:

- The first keynote speaker was Prof. Al Sacco, Dean of Engineering from Texas Technological University. He was the one who brought us out of this world kaaa! He worked as a NASA's astronaut and took 2 trips to space, spending 31 days altogether! He shared pix of earth from space for us to observe that developed and less developed countries through the glittering lights with more advanced ones having more energy to turn on lights while many others were dark. He called it, 'Enlightened vs Un-enlightened worlds' and added that much more help is needed.

Having had direct experiences in the areas of science and technology, he realizes that current ways of teaching could never catch up with the speed of progress  and so for his students, he said all had to 'learn how to learn' in order for them to be able to live their life in the future of uncertainty. I was really glad to hear him mention about the 'A' in 'STEM' as 'STEAM' and for him there must be a 'blend' of intelligence and integration of humans and human society'.

On the whole, there're two major aspects to share further ka. 

1. His school has managed to develop confidence in students, lead them to learn how to learn, and to have courage to take educated risks with systems thinking and from international exposure for at least 6-8 weeks of exchanges while recognizing students' mixed learning styles (not all will go for MOOCs) and offering learning spaces.

2. He projects that these are the four key areas to focus into the future: energy, infrastructure, engineering and medicine, and water.

More to follow ka!

Book chapter is published!

Happy Monday ka, everyone.  I had an opportunity to give two sessions to a group of university administrators in Thailand and Myanmar under the network funded by OHEC and coordinated by MFU- Mae Fah Luang University.  As always, the Myanmar side was very eager to learn and after having met for the third time, more questions were asked....even the newcomers were so enthusiastic. Since it's a president/rector level, most out of 7 came and if not, their pro-rectors were super active to learn and share. They'll advance so fast because of their thirst for new knowledge and experience ka. From our quick evaluation, the results showed their intention and commitment to pursue internationalization (focusing on research as top priority) at their respective universities. The next move will be to ensure that they havequality assurance in all the steps of their processes. On another note, after almost 4 years, the book entitled, "Education in Thailand, An Old Elephant in Search of a New Mahout" is published ka.  My colleague and I wrote a book chapter on "The Internationalization of Thai Higher Education over the Decades: Formidable Challenges Remain!" and I'm glad that there's at least one reference about how things have been done. I'm happier to see that IZN has become better known and been proactively implemented with much progress in many institutions in Thailand and hope more IZN research will be conducted.  If you're interested, the description is as seen below with the link to see the table of contents ka…very thick 744 pages ka (and expensive--$179)! My only joy to see it published is that we can now quote what we wrote with reference to the book chapter ka. Cheers. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-10-7857-6#toc Abstract of the Book: This interdisciplinary book offers a critical analysis of Thai education and its evolution, providing diverse perspectives and theoretical frameworks. In the past five decades Thailand has seen impressive economic success and it is now a middle-income country that provides development assistance to poorer countries. However, educational and social development have lagged considerably behind its globally recognized economic success. This comprehensive book covers each level of education, such as higher and vocational/technical education, and such topics as internationalization, inequalities and disparities, alternative education, non-formal and informal education, multilingual education, educational policy and planning, and educational assessment. The 25 Thai and 8 international contributors to the volume include well-known academics and practitioners. Thai education involves numerous paradoxes, which are identified and explained. While Thailand has impressively expanded its educational system quantitatively with much massification, quality problems persist at all levels. As such, the final policy-oriented summary chapter suggests strategies to enable Thailand to escape “the middle income trap” and enhance the quality of its education to ensure its long-term developmental success.   Abstract of our book chapter ka: Since 1990 following the formulation of the First 15-Year Long-Range Plan on Higher Education (1990–2004), Thailand’s efforts to internationalize have gradually shown some favorable results, especially in terms of the numbers of international students, programs, and partnerships. This chapter describes the 25-year evolution of internationalization examining factors speeding up or hindering progress; influences of national, regional, and international trends and partners; internationalization links; the rankings race; and quality assurance. The role of OHEC in providing leadership for and facilitation of internationalization is carefully reviewed. Four factors significantly influencing internationalization are examined, namely, Thai education reform, the cultural traditions of Thai educational administration, the development of global education internationalization, and the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community. Several other crucial factors are also discussed such as visionary leadership, engagement of millennials, benchmarking, and lintegration. Much improvement needs to be made in order to realize more in terms of the quality dimension – the key to a successful internationalization process. This will in turn ensure that the alignment and integration of policies from a broad framework with consistent elements as well as the maximization of resources available will lead to the collective implementation of the desired goals. ReplyForward

Student Mobility and ASEANness

Happy Monday na ka, everyone. I now no longer have 'Monday blue' as quite a few Mondays of mine are left free and I sure love it ka!

Again, lots have happened the past weeks with workshops and talks. Just looked back and forward, all were and will be in English......Thai higher education goes more 'inter' na ka!

Last week, I was in Hanoi conducting two sessions for SEAMEO RIHED. It had over 130 participants in one and over 70 in the other and both were meant to be interactive. It was tough to prepare a workshop to stress on 'ASEANness'  to member universities of the ASEAN International Mobility of Students Program (AIMS) and even tougher to conduct it ka......thank goodness, I survived ka!

Our region has had mobility programs here and there but intra-regional mobility has been high on the agenda because of AIMS though challenges persist when Japan and Korea are added on!

We've discussed ASEANness for decades and I could recall the earliest back to the time when there was an attempt to create an ASEAN University to become 'ASEAN University Network' we've seen. 

Content-wise, not enough understanding have we had about our being ASEAN in terms of characteristics and shared values (not just the facts and figures about our ASEAN region)and that could be one of the reasons why we have yet to integrate this aspect in our mobility program, especially before and after the activities are over.

Management-wise, challenges lie in the facts that many think of it as a 'check-list', meaning that we cross out the activities we've already completed without much attention being paid to 'how' things were done and 'how' to improve them strategically, not just incrementally.

Several lessons learned I'd like to share ka:

1. More emphasis has to be placed on repeating objectives and links to the projects/activities we're doing. I can't help but think of a few Japanese and Thai CEOs who said they continued talking about history and philosophy in meetings at all levels. It could be because we could remind ourselves why those activities and projects are selected to be carried out.

2. The use of 'To-do list' is helpful as a good reminder but we may have overused it as a 'Feel-good list' to see we've done all with 'yes' to all items. Within each item, they could be much more steps that include necessary content or tools to assess them which would allow following steps to be smoother and more fruitful to participants. Need to ask more questions about 'what could have been done better/differently?// and how to be responsive to the objectives'

3. International Relations Officers (IRO) and faculty members don't always have one same picture and shared objectives even when both groups work on the same project. While IRO tended to focus on the processes of sending out/receiving students, faculty members could gear toward credit transfer. 

Some missing links to be filled were mobility meaningfulness to students as individuals and for others to share the learning, faculty, IRO, and the institutions. These could happen at any process of the mobility from program mobility to selection, orientation, support during the exchange, debriefing, and use of reflections for improvements. 

4. One question that was a big challenge for faculty and IRO to answer their university presidents was, 'What is the ROI of the mobility project?' As in some dimensions of the experiences, it takes time for participants to know for sure what they've got out of the exchanges, I'd love to have a little roundtable to come up with concise and sensible responses for all to answer their bosses (and bosses to be included in the discussion too). Thinking of a big survey of ERASMUS and Fulbright loei ka.

Ideas and comments welcome ka!