The 7th Working Group on Student Mobility and Quality Assurance of Higher Education among the ASEAN Plus Three Countries (APTWG) meeting was held on 26 – 27 September 2019 in Singapore with the attendance of the delegates from the ASEAN member states, the ROK and Japan, as well as representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat, AUN, AQAN, AQRF and SEAMEO RIHED.
At the meeting, first, the representatives from the ASEAN Member States, Japan and the ROK gave a report on their results of the monitoring of the Guidelines on Students Exchange and Mobility (adopted in 2016) as well as the follow-up activities of the Guidelines on Transcripts and Supplemental Documents for Academic Records of Exchange Students (adopted in 2018).
Second, the Working Group agreed on revision of the TOR to add items specifying the procedures for changes to the chair and co-chair through the exchange of letters.
Third, Japan gave a report to the Working Group on updates on the CAMPUS Asia Program and the future direction of the program based on the 7th Meeting of the Japan-China-Korea Committee for Promoting Exchange and Cooperation among Universities held in Tokyo, and shared the concept of the Asia for All (tentative name) as a direction of future collaboration in Asia. The Working Group agreed to continue with discussion on future collaboration.
Then, regarding the availability of information online to promote mobility of higher education in the APT countries which the Working Group agreed upon last year as a future APTWG discussion theme, Japan reported the results of the expert meeting held in Tokyo last March, and proposed a draft outcome document, future steps, a questionnaire to be sent to universities and students in the member states, and the establishment of a working team to develop the questionnaire. The Working Group agreed on the future steps and to continue with discussions with a view to submitting the outcome document to the ASEAN Plus Three Education Ministers’ Meeting. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Japan and the ASEAN Secretariat volunteered to participate in the working team.
Last, the 7th APTWG meeting welcomed Vietnam as the host country for the 8th APTWG meeting in 2020.
