Sharing about Quality Journey

Happy long weekend ka!

Recently, I had an opportunity to moderate a session for two faculties (Chula Med and CMU Nursing) that got a Thailand Quality Class (TQC).

It was so funny I felt the urge to write about the Q&A. I put it in a different format as this isn't formal like what one has to write on behalf of the Working Group on Quality Development toward Performance Excellence.

It's in Thai so my few foreign friends won't be able to read it na ka, sorry about that ka.

Comments welcome and hope the sources cited could be useful for some to study further na ka.

Please follow this link  which will start with the following na ka:

สวัสดีวันหยุดยาวค่ะ

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https://www.facebook.com/Learn-Plern-Plern-103785848007834/?view_public_for=103785848007834

Comments welcome ka.

Never 'over communicate'

Good morning to all ka!

I have something hanging on my mind that can't go away so let me share with you here na ka.

After recent meetings and discussions with several circles, I think we need to create mutual understanding with our higher education community on these matters ka:

1. We must make clear what roles and responsibilities each one has from the Government to the Ministry and Universities, plus quite a few committees and sub-committees set up.

It seems in our circle, the roles are unnecessarily overlapped and so the management for implementation is confusing....in fact, confusing from the planning on!

The best is for us to 'lintegrate' (link and integrate) the ideas and efforts for each level to take up under the roles they are tasked with. Through this approach, IZN policies can be deployed down to the units like International Cooperation successfully. At the same time, various channels must be built for inputs to be drawn from 'bottom up' for realistic missions to be accomplished!

2. The creation of universities on the basis of 'University Autonomy' and 'Academic Freedom' must not be overlooked by national authorities. We've been great to manage proper distance between the national policy and implementation levels, allowing our universities to grow intellectually. Necessary national support in terms of global networks and trends, quality and quantity monitoring and synthesis plus access to resources is essential still and must be taken up seriously ka. 

3. Internationalization (IZN) is far from being understood in all levels and sectors so much more work needs to be done to answer 'Why IZN?'

- Ideally it's for embedded qualities of what our humanity needs in time of working alongside with AI like respect, caring, empathy, and resilience.

- It's to nurture needed soft skills for our citizens to become highly humane and capabilities, which could include leadership, collaboration, creativity/curiosity, agility, and interpersonal management; all with cross-cultural skills to reinforce the skill strengths.

- IZN will boost deeper understanding of international/universal values and standards like plagiarism, gender, harassment, helping us to be ethical, professional, and decent.

- Such qualities and practices can lead us to become innovative while enhancing favorable growth for sustainability of our peoples all over the world and our mother nature in its literal sense.

- IZN policies must generate benefits to our future stability where our younger generations will have to survive healthily in every possible dimension. They're the key stakeholders to engage in our national ambitions and directions. 

- Definitely, competition and competitiveness have to be embraced. Yet, we need to care for the mass of our population who too have to be groomed into quality citizens through diverse intercultural experiences in diverse sectors beyond university walls.

- IZN brings us to the world and brings the world to us (including pools of talents) so we can sail into the future in a less unknown situation. It needs imagination, boldness, and foresight to cross over the current brick and mortar, the one-shot event/project, and individual boundary for own success. 

IZN is both a means and an end that should be integrated into all missions synergistically and collaboratively from national to university and community settings dai loei ka.

Taking up IZN is still tough and this reminds me of a Japanese company I visited decades ago and summaries/stories I've listened to. One similar message sent out is, 'Never over communicate'....keep repeating your company's philosophy, keep talking about your history and thinking, keep mentioning the values that make the organization exist.

Here I am, keep communicating and over-communicating about IZN ka.

Reflect Reflect Reflect

Happy Monday to everyone ka.

This week, I'd like to share what I learned about reflections from decades of using it out of my desire to know what happened and what should be the next move ka. 

I think my love of doing so might have come from a one-time opportunity to be trained on, 'Monitoring and Evaluation' by UNICEF. It could seem to be that it has been in my brain all along without my being that aware. 

In any case, I used it a lot after each project/activity was done and it needed patience to keep it going as decades ago, calling an evaluation session was seen as 'blaming time' and Thais tend to 'take it personal' to the point that some could be real upset. After some time, my team started to ask for it ka. I learned and got some skills with them too.

I used 'Reflect' 3 times to show the magic of the number 3 which could help people be more concise. I also wish to share how this technique has helped us learn more about others plus three types of Reflections that I have used ka.

1. Regular reflections to identify our lessons learned especially those more abstract about cross-culture to enhance our intercultural understanding

2. Double reflections which is to reflect what has been reflected to synthesize and crystalize people's thoughts and inner feelings

3. Before and After Reflections is for each participant to assess their own intercultural competence before they start their exchange and after some period of time the same rating is used for them to do which can identify their personal growth ka.

Sharing my own little theories drawn from the past 3 decades in case it could be useful to those in international cooperation and beyond ka.

Is this Future still our Future?

Last week, I was invited an 'Inquirer'  in a session with a Futurist (Fulbright alum from U. of Houston), an Entrepreuner (Fulbright alum/GM form True Digital Park) and a VP from Mahidol University on 'Is the Future still our Future'. It was such a lively and interesting session that I had to postpone my planned podcast program to the following week ka. 

Thanks to Khun Chotima, Fulbright's Outreach Officer, who has helped summarize the session and I'd like to copy hers with very minor edits na ka.

1. Instead of trying to figure out what the future will be, why not consider downstream consequences and do not make decisions until you have to? Future thinking pays attention to changes with a scanning approach to see how the issue emerges over time. The point is not to be a surprise nor to cause panic with disruptions/changes. 

2. Rather than collaborating among HEIs themselves, why not partner with the private sector? This might be survival strategy for HEIs to:
• reduce the mismatch of skills actually required for the job market (otherwise, the private sector will become the key player in higher education...an example was a French private company funded the set up of a coding school!)
• have a clearer picture of life and needs in the future by learning more 'who we are and what are we doing every single day?'

3. How do HEIs properly include “character qualities”, one of the three skill sets under 21st Century Skills, into their curriculum? They have already put a heavy focus on “foundation literacies” and a light touch on “competencies”, both of which could be soon better performed by robots. The underemphasized “character qualities” skill set will mark the graduates out in the job market. 

IZN could be one key process for the nurturing of soft skills and for learners to be like 'duck', knowing more on the horizontal line, not just vertical.

4. How could HEIs balance ‘ranking’ with quality? Ranking is the means, not an end (quality) and should not distract HEIS from the real purposes/expected outcomes. HEIs need indicated persons in charge who know the importance of both ranking and quality and the way to properly balance them.

In the business aspect, ranking could help HEIs attract students and funding. However, students in the future might not care for ranking as much as for others benefits (e.g. signature programs).

5. How could we do more to incorporate cross-cultural experience in virtual programs? Virtual programs could not replace in-person ones. However, they are better than nothing in this period and will have more roles in the future.

6. What are we doing right now? Is it responsive to the future? HEIs could not operate in the same old ways. There might be no place/need for traditional HEIs in the future. Collaboration with the private sector is needed, similar to the proper relations between government (policy level) and HEIs.
7. Keywords
• Resilience to welcome changes and new learning
• Collaboration beyond the university community to include the private sector
• IZN as organization culture

If you're interested, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efiObdKb1vQ
or https://www.facebook.com/bics.ohec/videos/1321979611466364/?epa=SEARCH_BOX to follow the program or listen to 'Learn Plern Plern' which could have some different details from this message ka.