DIRECTOR GENERAL OF LEARNING AND STUDENT AFFAIRS MINISTRY OF RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY, AND HIGHER EDUCATION

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1 DIRECTOR GENERAL OF LEARNING AND STUDENT AFFAIRS MINISTRY OF RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY, AND HIGHER EDUCATION KEYNOTE MESSAGE HIGH-LEVEL FORUM ON AQRF AND IQF REFERENCING IN TOURISM AND ICT-MOOCS JAKARTA, 13 DECEMBER 2016 The honorable, Director of SEAMEO Secretariat; All Director of SEAMEO Centers; Director of Learning, MoRTHE; Distinguished Delegates, Committees and Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Good morning and peace be upon us. 1

2 It is an honor for me to be given the opportunity to give a keynote message on a very important event, that is High-Level Forum on AQRF And IQF Referencing In Tourism and ICT-MOOCs. I am delighted to congratulate you all for participating in this forum. Ladies and gentlemen, honorable guests and participants, To start with I would like to quote a statement from Julia Gillard, a former prime minister of Australia, when she commented on global competitiveness. She said: Our future growth relies on competitiveness and innovation, skills and productivity and these in turn rely on the education of our people Global competitiveness is a relatively new concept in our modern economy and an instrument that aims to assess the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens. This in turn depends on how productively a country uses available resources. It is calculated based on a variety of aspects, including wage level, infrastructure, macro economy, and, in relation to 2

3 the very important aspect that I want to address here, on higher education and qualification framework Dear honorable guests, As we are all aware, as of 1 January 2016, the SEAN Economic Communirty (AEC) came into effect.. A logical consequence of AEC is the free flow of goods and services within ASEAN countries, followed with investment, skilled labor and capital flows. The question is, what have we, the ASEAN countries prepared for this challenge? In response to such a question, fortunately, we in AEC do have the cooperation framework. The AEC areas of cooperation include human resources development and capacity building; recognition of professional qualifications; closer consultation on macroeconomic and financial policies; trade financing measures; enhanced infrastructure and communications connectivity; development of electronic transactions through e-asean; integration of industries across the region to promote regional sourcing; and enhancement of private sector involvement in the building of the AEC. Thus, related to that, the implementation of 3

4 qualifications framework becomes an essential requirement. Ladies and Gentlemen, Twelve priority sectors have been selected for entering the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), and three of them have already completed their Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs). Of the twelve priority sectors, the five service sectors chosen are healthcare, tourism, logistic, e-asean, and air transportation. In order to facilitate a mutual understanding of ASEAN member countries qualifications, and therefore assist in the mobility of workers, as well as students, among the member countries, as we are all aware of, an agreed standard has been established. In 2015, the relevant ministers of the member countries endorsed the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF). The AQRF consists of eight levels each described as two domains: knowledge and skills, and application and responsibility. The AQRF is a common reference framework designed as a translation device to enable the comparison of qualifications across ASEAN 4

5 member countries. As National Qualifications Framework (NQF) becomes an essential requirement in implementing the AEC, each ASEAN member country is required to establish its own NQF and reference it to the AQRF. While economic development is an indisputable stimulus, as illustrated in the ASEAN case, the development of qualifications framework is also motivated by a nation s imperative to reform its education system. NQFs are now globally recognized as the foundation of the educational strategies needed to build nations skilled workforces to support their economic development and growth. The best estimate is that the majority of countries spanning all continents has developed or is developing a national qualifications framework. Furthermore with the increasing global mobility of workers, the need for a national mechanism against which skills and qualifications gained elsewhere can be recognized is becoming an imperative. NQFs are used for the latter purpose in the absence of a regionally agreed referencing tool such as the AQRF. 5

6 Ladies and Gentlemen, In Indonesia we do have the Indonesian Qualifications Framework (IQF) which was started in 2012, by Presedential decree. The Presidential Decree stipulates a hierarchy of 9 qualification levels to enable equivalency of the outcomes of formal education, non-formal, informal, or work experiences. It serves as a reference for understanding the complexity of recognized competence in the job structure in all sectors. It also becomes the fundamental reference for defining the competence of graduates of academic, vocational, and professional education against the different levels. Eventough is has been strated in 2012, the current stage of implementation of IQF varies among different sectors in Indonesia. The implementation of qualifications framework in higher education should be carried out in the context of toward improving quality and relevance by strengthening quality assurance. The IQF also requires courses offered in higher education to adjust their learning outcomes to skills formation, from previously limited to education achievement, and make this information available to the public. In order to prevent over emphasis on indicators and external assessment, it is critical for the government to send a clear message to all 6

7 stakeholders, that the ultimate goal of introducing the IQF is to build a culture of quality within each institution. Distinguished ladies and gentleman, Tourism in Indonesia has become an important component of the Indonesian economy and, consequently, a significant source of its foreign exchange revenues. The Ministry of Tourism states that in 2015, our tourism sector contributed to around US$ 11 billion of foreign exchange; increased more than 7% each year over the past five years. Our tourism sector ranked as the 4th largest among goods and services export sectors. The Bureau of Statistics has also shown that in the year 2016, ~8 million international visitors entered Indonesia, staying in hotels for an average of 7.5 nights and spending an average of US$1,142 per person during their visit, or US$ per person per day. These numbers show our achievement and commitment to tourism. However, if we consider our natural and cultural potentials, there are still a lot of things to be done, particularly in managing these resources more effectively and preparing our human capital for the business. 7

8 Among the challenges that our human resources are facing now is embracing the AQRF and IQF Referencing in Tourism. In line with the QA network development, ASEAN member countries need to choose details program to start with. In this valuable occasion, I would like to invite all of participants to apply a new trend of learning in this instant communication era we faced today. MOOCs, as a massive open online course, have many opportunities for our modern education in higher education. This phenomenon has changed the way of study, which is marked by the emergence of new terms such as e-book, elearning, cyber/virtual campus, and mobile learning. MOOCs, at least, has three characteristics, i.e. massive, open and online. It means, MOOCs offers anybody to have access to any learning resources (both open content, open course or even online course) anytime, anywhere, anyway, in their personal online learning environment. As long as people connected to their own personal online learning environment, they have opportunity as lifelong learners. Distinguished Ladies and Gentleman, 8

9 However, MOOCs are also facing so many challenges, among others as has been widely quoted the statement by British education scholar Alison Wolf, who says in 2002: We have not found any low cost, high technology alternative to expert human teachers at least not yet. Nonetheless, I believe that the application of MOOCs also will have a huge contribution, especially to our AQRF and IQF in tourism as well as ICT (including any other areas of study) that we will further discussed in our high-level forum today. Finally, let me once again congratulate all of you here. This conference allows us to provide our experience, our intellectual contributions, which will result in a significant contribution to the development of AQRF and IQF Referencing in Tourism in the AEC situation. I also sincerely hope that your deliberations will provide us valuable contributions to help us meet the challenges facing the Global situation. Thank you very much. Wassalamu alaikum Wr. Wb. Director General of Learning and Students Affair Prof. Ahmad Intan 9