By Dr. Edilberto c. De Jesus
Some brochures claim the ferry ride from Singapore to the island of Batam takes only 45 minutes. The prudent traveler should allow for an hour and 15 minutes and on weekends during the high season even for an hour-and-a-half, from the time the ferry pushes off the Singapore pier to the time passengers can safely disembark on the island. But Batam follows Indonesian time, which is an hour behind Singapore.
Batam is part of the Indonesian province of KepRi (Kepuluan Riau or Riau Archipelago). Declared a free port and trade zone in 1989, Batam has pushed the development of the province. By 2008, it had a population of nearly 800,000. Investments had breached the US$13 billion, with over a thousand joint venture companies setting up shop on the island. Its proximity to Singapore and its beaches and six golf courses have placed it second only to Bali in tourist arrivals.
But Ismeth Abdullah, the Governor of KepRi sees the potential of the province developing not just as an economic enclave and a tourist destination, but also as an education hub. When the ASEAN Secretariat decided that the time was opportune to convene a group to revisit the idea of an ASEAN University, the Governor readily offered to host the meeting in Batam.
The ASEAN University is an idea that is over 20 years old. It had been proposed in 1986 as a measure to promote ASEAN economic cooperation and integration. In 1991, as part of the preparation for the 4th ASEAN Summit in Singapore, ASEAN Secretariat, then headed by Secretary General Rusli Noor, organized a Study Team “to design a feasible concept” and “to develop a plan of implementation.”
I was then still with the Aquino Cabinet, but preparing to transition back to the Asian Institute of Management. I was glad to join to join Dr. Lee Kiong Hok from the University of Malaya, Dr. Harsono Tarupratjeka from the Bandung Institute of Technology in the three-man Study Team. We quickly decided to set up an Advisory Board, whose members were the heads of the national universities of the member States.
Much has changed since that first formal study of an ASEAN University nearly two decades ago. ASEAN then only had six members, and the need for an ASEAN University was, perhaps, more compelling. At that time, only UP had established a degree program in Southeast Asian Studies. There were fewer institutions of higher learning in the region and cross-border education was just catching on.
No action followed from the Study Team‘s 1991 report, perhaps because ASEAN only had a Sub-Committee on top of the education sector. The body that had ministerial representation was SEAMEO, the Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization. ASEAN and SEAMEO were still operating on separate tracks.
A few years later, the Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange Program (SEASREP), a private initiative that received funding support from the Toyota Foundation, started implementing key recommendations of the Study Team. SEASREP began providing fellowships to permit Southeast Asian scholars to lecture or do research outside their countries and to enable younger academics from the region to earn their post-graduate degrees in Southeast Asian Studies from universities in the region.
The rationale for an ASEAN University has also remained as relevant in 2009 as in 1991. We conceived the ASEAN University, not as a traditional higher institution with all of the standard departments and discipline, but as a network of the region‘s leading learning centers. Such a network, we believed, would promote a greater sense of regional identity and solidarity, help address ASEAN requirements for human resource development, and reduce the cost of gearing up to the demands of the Information Age.
The new ASEAN Charter, signed in 2007, enshrines these objectives in its statement of purposes. Section 10 calls for the development of human resources “through closer cooperation in education and lifelong learning, and in science and technology, for the empowerment of the peoples of ASEAN and for the strengthening of the ASEAN Community.” Section 14 articulates the need “to promote ASEAN identity through the fostering of greater awareness of the diverse culture and heritage of the region.”
With the developments in technology, the ASEAN University can take different forms. It can be a virtual, rather than a bricks-and-mortar campus. But a piece of real estate, where ASEAN intellectuals can gather, as at an Aspen or Bellagio, would be nice to have. Gov. Ismeth knows about cities functioning both as tourist and education center; he had spent a month in Baguio on an ADB training program.
With the support of leaders like Gov. Ismeth Abdullah, such an ASEAN center becomes attainable. KepRi has land to spare. As the Governor declared, “we have 2,408 islands.”
Source: http://www.mb.com.ph