Asian Media and Information Centre (AMIC) secretary general Ramon R. Tuazon urged communication schools in ASEAN countries to actively pursue regional integration in communication education.
Mr. Tuazon made the call in his keynote address during the Regional Forum on Communication for Smart ASEAN via Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on August 10. The forum was organized by the International Master’s Program of Communication Arts for ASEAN of Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) in Bangkok, Thailand.
According to Tuazon, while programs in engineering, architecture, and medical sciences have achieved significant progress in pursuing ASEAN program integration, little progress has been achieved in communication and journalism education. The envisioned integration is part of borderless education.
Tuazon described borderless education as a system of transfer of credits, joint degrees granted by educational institutions and non-traditional partners such as business and industry, recognition of degrees, and comparability of qualifications.
To pursue borderless education and a higher education area in ASEAN, Tuazon reminded ASEAN educators of the need to adopt national qualifications and quality assurance systems toward an ASEAN Reference Qualifications and Assurance Frameworks.
The Philippines has already drafted its qualifications framework for communication which can be a model for other ASEAN countries.
To jumpstart the pursuit of borderless communication and journalism education in ASEAN, AMIC plan to undertake studies on competencies compatibility and comparability, craft a draft ASEAN Reference Qualifications Framework, and conduct a feasibility study for an ASEAN and Asia-Pacific accreditation standards system for communication and journalism schools.
AMIC also plans to do an ASEAN communication and journalism curriculum review which focuses on compatibility and comparability and develop learning resources such as an AMIC textbook for communication and journalism courses common among communication and journalism schools in the Asia-Pacific region.
During the two-day conference, STOU launched its Thailand MOOCs. Dr. Kamolrat Intaratat, program chair of the Master of Communication Arts for ASEAN Program, was the conference lead convenor.