As
Asean is gearing up for one community by 2015, an idea to strengthen education
through a cooperation involving open universities in five ASEAN countries came
up during Senior Officials Committee for ASCC or SOCA.
Asean aims to bridge the socio-economic
development gap among its 10 member countries in accordance with "One
Asean Identity, One Asean Community by 2015".
"For education sector, the Asean
ministerial decision that there are five open universities, which are in
Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam that will hold
cooperation," Indonesian delegation head for ASCC/SOCA Nina Sardjunani
told news agency Antara after the meeting in Semarang, Central Java, on
Saturday.
Nina said that the cooperation would allow for
a student exchange system and other cooperation to improve human resources.
"So we will cooperate to move into one
Asean 2015 community," she said.
In Indonesia, the university is Universitas
Terbuka (UT), Indonesia's 45th state university, which employs an open and
distance learning (ODL) system to widen access to higher education for all
Indonesian citizens, including those who live on remote islands throughout the
country as well as in various parts of the world.
Established in 1984, UT is intended to be a
flexible and inexpensive university, focused on serving people who do not have
the opportunity to attend conventional, more expensive, face-to-face higher
education institutions.
National Education deputy minister Fasli Jalal
said that the cooperation would make UT the hub of open universities in the
region. He said that the cooperation would allow universities to learn from
each other.
"UT is the best practice sample for
distant learning. Other countries in Asean, such as Malaysia, are still
developing. Some countries, like Myanmar, do not even have this type of
university. It is important to have the cooperation so we can exchange and
compare learning modules," he said.
Fasli said that UT had 600,000 students, with
80 percent of the students were already teachers while pursuing their
undergraduate degrees. He said that the UT system allowed the teacher to
continue working to complete their studies.
"The university has provided great access
for its students to develop their educations and careers. We hope that in the
future, the university can further assist in important roles," he said.
The realisation of the open university
cooperation is estimated to take place in 2012.
Nina said that other issues discussed during
the meeting were the Indonesian delegation's suggestion that an institution
should supervise women's and children's rights.
"Until now, we do not yet have an
institution to supervise women's issues and Indonesia suggested that there
should be an institution at the ministerial level on women's and children's
issues, which is the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Women," she said.
The other issue on the concerned HIV, wherein
Asean agreed to push down mortality rates and the number of new people
afflicted with HIV/AIDS.
Asean hopes to facilitate its members to reach
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The meeting also discussed
protection for the disabled so that there will be a legal basis across borders
for the disabled.
"To facilitate that, we need an action plan
for 2011-2020 on what ASEAN should do as a region," she said.
Nina said that the meeting also discussed
cooperation between Asean and China to improve medical worker capacity.
Tifa Asrianti
The Jakarta Post
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