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,
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”
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?
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.
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.
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,
stakeholders, that the ultimate goal of introducing the IQF is to build a culture of quality within each institution.
Distinguished ladies and gentleman,
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.
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
