Asia Pacific Higher Education Evolution Summit 2015

The Asia-Pacific region is home to an array of diverse cultures, each with its own successful Higher Education system. The challenge now is to expand the success beyond national excellence, into the region and ideally internationally.

Firstly, many universities across Asia are calling for harmonisation of their education systems to allow for international education and greater student mobility. The harmonisation of diverse higher education schemes is a process that recognises the significance of regional education cooperation. Many are looking towards Europe for the lessons learned coming out of the Utrecht network for example.

A significant driver for this is the increased call for the emerging labour force across Asia to be highly educated and trained. Many of Asias technological universities significantly contribute to local industry income highlighting the strength of the region to create and sustain industry and university partnerships. Now the drive is to expand these partnerships to other universities (to focus on developing research) and international businesses. Further challenges that seem to face many Higher Education Institutions, not just in Asia but across the globe, is that of quality assurance and the provision of courses, whether from public or private institutions adhere to certain standards and regulations set out by Higher Education governing bodies. This circles back to the concept of harmonisation to enhance student mobility and help Asian universities cement their position in their direct region, in the Pacific and further afield.

KEY TOPICS TO BE COVERED:

Harmonisation of Asian higher education systems
Student mobility
International education
Quality assurance
Partnerships and collaboration research and industry
Regional growth - competition and cooperation
Education governance
Public and privately funded universities
Quality cross border education