Journal of ASEAN Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2018), pp. 117-136 

DOI: 10.21512/jas.v6i2.5120.g3494  

©2018 by CBDS Bina Nusantara University and Indonesian Association for International Relations 

ISSN 2338-1361 print / ISSN 2338-1353 electronic 

Questioning the Regional Integration of Higher 

Education in ASEAN: Equality for All? 

 
Dudy Heryadi     Universitas Padjajaran, Indonesia 

Anggia Utami Dewi    Universitas Padjajaran, Indonesia 

Akim       Universitas Padjajaran, Indonesia 

Cecep Hermawan    Universitas Padjajaran, Indonesia 

Waki’ah      Universitas Padjajaran, Indonesia 

Abstract 

Regional integration in ASEAN, within the framework of ASEAN Community has three 

pillars. ASEAN Socio-Culture Community as one of the pillars brought the vision of 

equality of access toward education aligned with the United Nation Sustainable 

Development Goals. Specifically, integration of higher education is institutionally 

spearheaded by the ASEAN University Network (AUN) established in 1995, which 

currently is still the only legitimate HEI’s platform under the ASEAN Secretariat. This 

paper discusses the question on the exclusivity of AUN membership that had created the 

narratives of doubt among the non-member universities of AUN. By taking the case 

studies on selected universities in Indonesia and Thailand, the research is conducted with 

the qualitative method using triangulation of data collection from in-depth interview and 

structured focus group discussion (FGD) as primary sources, supplemented by the desk 

study on current research on the area of regional integration and higher education 

management. The result presented the positive view on the question posed in the 

research. AUN is adapting to change, with several universities are now holding the 

status of associate membership. AUN also stated that they are under the preparation of 

making scheme and procedure of new membership application. As a unique space of 

integration in ASEAN, AUN is continuously adjusting to accommodate the needs of the 

greater audience.  

Key words: higher education, ASEAN University Network, inclusive, regional 

integration, ASEAN 

 

Introduction 

In the modern times, what it means 

by regional integration is not only defined 

by economic and political integration. It is 

also defined by the socio-cultural 

integration including cultural and people 

mobility across the region, and regional 

standardization of the quality of 

education.  

In this context, the United Nations 

Sustainable Development Goals (UN 

SDGs) as the continuation program of 



118  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 

which elapsed in 2015 is supportive of 

regional integration in the way that it calls 

for collaboration with regional initiatives 

in achieving its goals by 2030 including in 

the field of education. The goal number 4 

from the UN SDGs is Quality Education. 

One of its targets is ensuring equal access 

for all men and women for affordable 

vocational and tertiary education, 

including university (UN SDGs, 2015). 

The target of this goal does not only mean 

equal access toward the tertiary education, 

but also equal access toward the same 

qualified universities for all men and 

women. Thus, the process of achieving 

this goal will involve the role of regional 

education standardization that could ease 

the process of global standardization. 

Consequently, it will improve the 

capability of not just university in 

achieving its goal of internationalization, 

but also improve the capability of youths 

in achieving what they need in the global 

competitive market.  

Integration always gets around the 

Europeanization of the European Union, 

but another region is rising too. In 

Southeast Asia, regional integration has 

taken place ever since the Bali Concord 

was concluded in 2002 and the vision of 

ASEAN Vision 2020 was established. 

Hence, today we see the gradual 

integration of ASEAN Member States, 

under three main pillars, namely Political-

Security, Economy, and Socio-Cultural. 

These three aspects of integration are 

named as the ASEAN Community. The 

ASEAN Economic Community is the 

spotlight after all of its achievements in 

decreasing the trade barriers and 

improving the human mobility across the 

region, meanwhile the ASEAN Socio-

Cultural Community, the third pillar, is 

rarely mentioned. Education, social and 

cultural exchanges, and human 

settlements are some objectives within this 

pillar (Letchumanan, 2015). But this poses 

several challenges to the Member States of 

ASEAN, in term of education itself. The 

biggest challenges are related to: (1) the 

different education system across the 

region; (2) the challenges of balancing the 

universal value from the region and local 

values (Umboh, 2013). 

In this context, education integration 

is the priority of regular meeting of the 

Senior Officials on Education and 

University Networks in ASEAN, such as 

the SEAMEO-RIHED: Southeast Asian 

Ministers of Education Organization – 

Regional Institute of Higher Education 

and Development. In the term of higher 

education, ASEAN University Network 

(AUN) is spearheading the progress of 

higher education standardization and 

integration to let all students across 

ASEAN could enroll for higher education 

in any ASEAN countries without being 

concerned of the university’s different 

grading and curriculum.  

However, it is still an only 

unfinished vision. Currently, after 23 

years from the commencement of the 

AUN in 1995, only 30 universities are 

involved in the process of quality 

assessment and curriculum 

standardization for the ASEAN University 

Network (AUN, 2017). The AUN is 



Journal of ASEAN Studies   119 
 

planning to expand its participating 

member by the upcoming years, starting 

by giving the observer status of 

prospectus university, followed by quality 

assessment, and decided by the Board of 

Trustees of the ASEAN University 

Networks.  

This exclusiveness emerging in the 

process toward an inclusive integration is 

not without precedence.  Taking an 

example from the Bologna Process for the 

region of Europe with currently 50 

signatories, both EU and non-EU member 

calling for the unification and 

standardization of higher education in 

Europe. Thus, a student in Andorra could 

enroll at Oxford, when they are qualified 

disregard where they enrolled previously 

(EHEA, 2016). Even during the Bologna 

Process, four countries were rejected from 

the process, namely, Kyrgyzstan, Israel, 

Kosovo, and Northern Cyprus (BFUG, 

2007). It is always a long process for some 

integrations to become extensively 

inclusive, but the question is, whether the 

integration will be inclusive for all 

members within the designated region or 

not?   

This is particularly important in 

ASEAN, when the process of integration 

seems to be exclusive only for certain 

universities. This exclusiveness, however, 

has also its own advantages. The small 

number of universities as members has 

enabled the AUN to fasten the process of 

standardization and quality assessment of 

higher education in each country. It 

includes the ability of the networks to 

conduct various workshops and training 

regarding the quality of education in 

ASEAN as well as the integration of 

higher education under the regime of 

ASEAN Socio-Culture Community 

(ASCC). Here, it can be seen the paradox 

of integration. On the one hand, the 

exclusive networks enabled the forum to 

be more effective and efficient in 

achieving their goals. On the other hand, 

it indirectly and unintentionally left other 

universities behind.  

By taking the experience of AUN 

and the case studies in Indonesia and 

Thailand, this study aims to discuss the 

process of integration of higher education 

in ASEAN with the perspective of the 

universities as the main actor of the 

integration process. The process of 

integration can be explained in two ways. 

First, seeing it outside of the box, 

observing the process of integration 

through analyzing the patterns comes 

within the legal standing being made by 

the states’ actor. Second, is through 

observing each actor within the process of 

integration itself. The study aims to 

describe and analyze the process through 

the second way to gain clear and 

diversified picture of the experienced of 

the specific actors in term of regional 

integration of their field.  

The study shall pose two main 

questions. First on whether the integration 

of higher education in ASEAN has already 

inclusive enough to cater all the needs of 

the higher education institutions in 

ASEAN? Second, on understanding the 

current condition of integration of higher 

education in ASEAN, what factors might 



120  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

affect the process and what is beyond the 

current integration? By answering the 

questions, this paper seeks to fill the gap 

of discussion on the inclusivity of regional 

higher education integration in ASEAN. 

Study Design and Research Method 

This study adopts a qualitative 

research method, with triangulation on 

data collection processes, combining in-

depth interview, focus group discussion, 

and in-depth library research to the 

current research on the field of regional 

integration and the dynamic development 

of higher education in Southeast Asia 

(Berg & Lune, 2011). The triangulation has 

enabled the author to make the cross-

reference between the results of the in-

depth interview with senior leaders and 

senior officers within universities, result 

of the focus group discussion involving 

the university office of international 

affairs, as well as results of the in-depth 

library research on the current study in 

the same field to draw the red line of the 

research.  

The countries selected as case 

studies in this research, Indonesia and 

Thailand, are chosen based on the almost 

similar development of economies, also 

the non-English speaking background, 

who exercise the comparable higher 

education reform direction. Both countries 

have started to put priorities in making 

higher education institutions as important 

actors in supporting the nation’s 

competitiveness and development (Dewi, 

Heryadi, & Akim, 2017). The ground bases 

for institution selection in this research are 

their management status, their status of 

membership in AUN, and their national 

and regional reputation. The sample of 

institutions taken as case studies was an 

opportunity sample, in which the data 

gathering processes were able to be 

conducted through professional contacts 

and formal request (Foskett, 2010, p. 41). 

Therefore, the results of the study present 

the early analysis of the question posed 

from the case studies rather than a 

generalization.  

The primary findings are divided 

into two kind series of data in the mid-

2017 and late-2017. First, the in-depth 

interview was taking place in the mid-

2017 to two universities in Thailand: one is 

a private university in Thailand, member 

of the AUN, mention as university A, the 

other one is a non-AUN Member public 

research university that specializes in 

agricultural science, hereby mentioned as 

University B; also, to the representative of 

AUN Secretariat in Bangkok, Thailand. As 

for the universities in Indonesia, in-depth 

interviews were conducted in three 

institutions. University C is a public 

university, recently gained special 

autonomy from the government, 

University D is a public university, 

member of AUN, advances in Sciences 

and Technology; University E is a 

comprehensive public university, member 

of AUN, and one of the oldest universities 

in Indonesia. The in-depth interviews 

were conducted with the resource persons 

coming from the senior leaders and/or 

officers of each university who engaged 

with international cooperation activities. 



Journal of ASEAN Studies   121 
 

 Second, the findings were collected 

from the result of the Focus Group 

Discussion held in Bandung in October 

2017, involving four universities based in 

Bandung city, namely: (1) University C, 

(2) University F, a private university based 

in Bandung; (3) University G, a public 

university, specialized and advances in 

education and pedagogy learning, and (4) 

University H, a private university based in 

Bandung. The Focus Group Discussion 

(FGD) mainly discussed about the role of 

international offices in each university to 

conduct international cooperation and to 

achieve the internationalization of the 

university in the current trend of regional 

integration.  

For this research, selected parts of 

the interview and focus group discussion 

were excerpted. Meanwhile, to improve 

the validity and analysis of this research, 

the extensive confirmation was made with 

the current research about the related field 

until the first half of 2018. 

Theoretical Framework 

Regional Integration Theory 

The theory of regional integration is 

mostly related to the case of regional 

integration of the European Union. 

Caporaso (2008) mentioned the four 

phases of regional integration as to 

include respectively the early phase of 

integration, goodness fit/misfit, mediating 

institutions and domestic structural 

changes. The theory itself is drawn from 

the preceding circumstances of the 

European Union from the early Rome 

Treaty in 1957 to the Maastricht Treaty in 

1993 that marked the establishment of 

European Union. However, in the context 

of ASEAN, it is important to note that the 

dynamics must be different from the 

experience of European integration or 

other regions.  

One different aspect is related to the 

origin of the establishment of ASEAN 

which comes from political and security 

rather than economic prosperity 

rationales. The other aspect is the 

relatively weaker institutionalization of 

integration process. However, in general, 

comparative assessment between 

European and Asian regionalism focuses 

on the inclusive network structure of 

Asian regionalism versus exclusive formal 

institutions in continental Europe 

(Katzenstein, 1996, p. 150). Network 

regionalization which main features are 

the regional identity-driven response to 

globalization and powers that rely mainly 

on non-institutionalized or inter- 

governmental working methods, is argued 

to fit the typology of regional integration 

in ASEAN (Warleigh-Lack, 2006, p.760).  

Integration of Higher Education 

Regional integration of higher 

education includes the broad-sense of the 

equal standardization across the region. 

Meanwhile, for higher education, the 

measurement of standardization needs to 

be more accurately considered based on 

the higher priority and importance of 

vocational function of the higher 

education. However, like other process of 

regional integration, higher education 

faces the same dual problems of 

integration: (1) resolving drawn-out 



122  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

violent conflict in several sub-regions; (2) 

overcoming the extreme differences in 

economic prosperity and social 

development among member countries 

(Feuer & Hornidge, 2015).  

The correlation between conflict 

prevention and higher education 

institutions relates to the improvement of 

youth’s capability. In managing existing 

or residual conflicts, higher education 

integration concerns on how 

comprehensive these initiatives of 

integration facilitate the cultural tolerance, 

integration, and peaceful coexistence 

within the region (Selvaratnam and 

Gopinathan, 1984). Since numerous 

conflicts within the member of ASEAN 

are drawn from the cultural and political 

identity issues, it is understandable how 

the knowledge society could help to 

achieve the peace in the region. Here, it 

can be argued that building knowledge 

societies also means building the long-

term peace and resilient in the region.  

Higher education integration 

depends mainly on two factors to shape 

the control: (1) competitiveness/ 

attractiveness of the region, and; (2) 

legitimation of their degree system (Feuer 

& Hornidge, 2015). In addition, the 

integration is also affected by the 

university characteristics and quality 

assurance. As stated by the AUN, those 

two aspects will remain important in the 

integration process.  It is also the case 

during the Bologna process, where the 

admission of a country to enter the 

Bologna process was mainly based on the 

attractiveness of a higher education in the 

country and the degree system.  

Above all, higher education 

integration means creating space in the 

region for all member to come over as one. 

The ASEAN Integration of Higher 

Education is initiated by the meeting of 

elite networks including the Southeast 

Asia Minister of Education Organization 

(SEAMEO). Koh (2007), citing from 

Massey (2005), mentioned that space for 

integration needs to consider three things: 

(1) space as product of interrelations and 

is constituted through interactions; (2) 

space as the domain where heterogeneity 

and difference are not only permissible 

but norm, and (3) space as work of 

continuity in the field, not a static one-

time event. To understand the process of 

integration, therefore, it is important to 

understand how space is created in 

ASEAN.  

In ASEAN, the orientation of the 

integration resembles the regionalist-

culturalist one (Feuer & Hornidge, 2015). 

It is argued that ASEAN is thriving for 

ASEANization in order to compete with 

Europeanization and Americanization of 

higher education (Nith, 2013). It aims to be 

unique unlike the other region across the 

globe (Kanyajananiyot, 2017). Nature 

seems to be inherent. It is withdrawn from 

the regional diversity of ASEAN to 

conduct the higher education with 

normative values applies to the process of 

law-making emphasized by each 

respective government.  

The integration of higher education 

also tends to have two orientations: neo-



Journal of ASEAN Studies   123 
 

liberals with pro-business type and 

idealists, who focus on education quality 

and justice (Feuer & Hornidge, 2015). This 

can be seen in each ASEAN member 

states. Cambodia is facing the outburst of 

private HEIs (Sen & Ros, 2013). 

Meanwhile, countries in the peninsula 

such as Malaysia, Singapore and 

Indonesia seemed to be more idealists 

with numerous special admission 

programs to make sure education is 

inherent right for all. The reform for both 

orientation centers around the “optimistic 

conceptual progression of integration’, 

‘building knowledge society’, and ‘reform 

in the region’ (Feuer & Hornidge, 2015). 

Integration itself has been seen more 

competitive in the practices than it should 

be, balancing the dual process of building 

strategic partnerships across the region as 

well as defending the sovereignty and 

specialty afar from duplicating by the 

partner university.   

Thus, it seems that a more complex 

analysis is needed to describe the process 

of integration of higher education in the 

region with cultural and political 

complexity like ASEAN. The divine gaps 

among the countries and the domestic 

structural instability are the challenges for 

integration.  

Result and Discussion 

AUN: Space for Integration? 

The first space of the integration is 

about the organizational architecture 

where the plurality of network emerged 

(Jetschke & Murray, 2012). The ASEAN 

University Network (AUN) is not a part of 

the ASEAN Vision 2020 agreed by the 

ASEAN Member States in Bali Concord 

and Hanoi Action Plan 2003, but it is an 

initiative comes as (un-)intended effect of 

education cooperation in ASEAN. This 

refers to the regular meeting of the Senior 

Official of Education of the member states 

as well as the advance development of the 

SEAMEO where the elites come together 

to create specific network and processes to 

build the blueprint of the AUN.  

As functionalist argued, the spill-

over effect is often unpredictable to the 

extent on what field the integration will 

take place after the previous integration 

finally emerged. ASEAN started as the 

community to create political awareness 

among the member states as well as 

creating the economic web within the 

Peninsula and Archipelagos. However, 

after the early 2000s, the development has 

finally arrived in the intersection where 

the institution of ASEAN took all the turns 

to be multi-dimensional regional 

institution, following the success of the EU 

after the commencement of the Maastricht 

Treaty by 1993.  

As argued by Acharya (2001) and Ba 

(2009), ASEAN is a regional organization 

comes from the norm appropriation of its 

member. The cultural differences along 

with the different system of government 

are bound and tied together by the spirit 

of decolonization and challenging the 

Cold War. Thus, ASEAN had a fast 

development during the Cold War and 

facing the gap between the end of the 

Cold War to the establishment of the 

ASEAN Vision 2020 by 2002. Kahler (2000) 



124  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

even argued that ASEAN is not a 

diplomatic cooperation platform, not until 

the end of Cold War. Meaning, it denied 

the rationalist argument that member of 

the regional organization is tied to the 

same interest for greater cooperation. Yes, 

ASEAN is tied by that argument, but not 

until 2002.  

The AUN was built under this 

argument as well. At the beginning, the 

vision was too low with only 17 university 

members by 1995. The rational of the 

small membership at this initial step was 

the view on how large membership would 

be a big deal to handle if all universities in 

the region with various standards of a 

degree came together as one network at 

that time. Also, there was an authority 

factor on AUN membership, where the 

government representatives from each 

ASEAN Member States were the one 

determining the chosen institutions from 

their country to be member of the AUN. 

Thus, the question of exclusivity of AUN 

was in the first place originated from how 

the membership was arranged, with the 

consideration of each member states on 

which universities were eligible to become 

the member of AUN.  

The AUN itself is trying to open the 

membership for more universities 

gradually in order for the network to 

adapt to the changing system. Although 

the opening for unlimited number of 

universities to apply for membership in 

the AUN shall create hassled in the long-

term, AUN is optimistic that open 

membership will come eventually to the 

region, but gradual changes shall be 

expected. 

AUN is not just working like other 

regional networking with membership 

fee. They are working based on the spirit 

of contribution, with layers of 

collaboration, policy dialogue level and 

operational level. Thus, AUN is trying to 

portray themselves as the voluntary 

network giving it best to create decent 

framework for the whole region. The 

expansions of AUN with participation of 

various dialogue partners including the 

ASEAN+3 and European Union, Asian 

Development Bank, and other partners, 

give AUN more sources of funding that 

help growth of the AUN. Currently AUN, 

along with various dialogue partners, are 

conducting programs that not limited to 

the AUN members or associate members, 

but also to the rest of universities and 

higher education institutions (HEIs) across 

the region, consist of faculty and student 

mobility, conference programs, as well as 

the scholarship programs, both for short-

term or degree-based programs.  

Within the last two years (2016-

2018), AUN has been planning to achieve 

mainly five goals in its mission to create a 

standardized quality of education across 

the region. Those goals are (1) quality gap 

narrowed; (2) emerging priorities 

engaged; (3) exposure expanded; (4) in-

depth awareness, and; (5) quality of 

teaching and learning (AUN, 2017). 

According to AUN, the AUN-Quality 

Assurance (here forward AUN-QA), is the 

tool in achieving those goals by 

incorporating universities (member or 



Journal of ASEAN Studies   125 
 

non-member) to the same standard of the 

quality assurance. It is expected that the 

gap between university degree system 

and quality of grading could become thin 

in a long-term. In other words, the current 

institutions are working as board of 

director for the greater membership of the 

AUN in the region itself.  

The purpose of AUN to create the 

system of AUN-QA is establishing an 

internal quality assurance system for the 

network’s member universities and 

harmonizing the higher education in the 

region (Umemiya, 2008). However, some 

might argue that AUN is way too 

exclusive by saying that the membership 

is too limited to only 30 universities out of 

thousands across the region.  

To respond to the argument of 

exclusivity, we could use the logic of AUN 

as the same with the laboratory test 

toward guinea pig. The current member is 

set of examples for what going to be 

applied to the whole region in near future. 

Within the board of trustee of the AUN 

itself, there are three kinds of member; (1) 

Secretariat of ASEAN (Sec-Gen and the 

Chairman of ASCOE); (2) country’s 

representatives; (3) Director of AUN 

(AUN, 2017). It means the AUN is 

working as the sub-organization under 

the umbrella of ASEAN’s secretariat. 

Thus, the program soon or later will have 

disseminated back to the greater region. 

For example, the ASEAN Credit Transfer 

System is currently available only for a 

member of the AUN because the 

university that currently meet the 

standards are only members. However, it 

opens opportunity to get into the ACTS to 

enlist the application of the AUN-QA and 

later admit themselves to the ACTS 

system. There are 77 programs conducted 

by the AUN to mainstreaming the AUN-

QA by July 2016-2017, incorporating 

member of the AUN, Associate Member of 

the AUN, as well as non-member to gain 

more knowledge about the quality 

management of higher education. These 

activities are important to note certain 

qualities that AUN has as the regional 

institutional backbone for the ASEAN’s 

integration of higher education.  

Second, ASEAN is a unique 

platform with great cultural diversities. 

Consequently, ASEAN University 

Network is a rich mix of cultures and 

education values coming from across the 

region.  Thus, the works of the AUN took 

more considerations and times than the 

process of Bologna Process. In Europe, the 

Bologna Process took place in the single 

region with vast similarities, make it 

easier to create standardization, because 

culturally and economically speaking, 

their characteristics are mainly the same. 

In contrast, the biggest obstacles for 

ASEAN come not only from the economic 

gap among the member states, but also the 

gap in education quality. Umemiya (2008: 

286-288) understands this condition and 

stated that the effort of ASEAN 

Integration by 2015 could have positive 

(un)intended effect on the quality of 

education in ASEAN. Countries like 

Singapore and Malaysia have changed 

from sending their student abroad to 

receiving overseas student. Countries like 

Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are 



126  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

working on the effort in gaining more 

exposures on publication and research to 

increase their quality in the region because 

research is one of the base qualities that 

AUN-QA focusing on (Umemiya, 2008).  

ASEAN University Network is not a 

static organization which does not adapt 

to changes in their environment. In 1995, 

they only had 17 universities as members, 

but since 2013 they have 30 members with 

some universities applying for observer 

status and Quality Assurance for their 

universities. From 2007-2017, AUN has 

conducted 248 programs, incorporating 19 

AUN members, 17 associate members, 

and one non-member university (AUN, 

2017). The progress is considerably slow, 

but it takes the stand in the 

standardization of university and 

education quality in ASEAN.  It makes the 

internationalization of HEIs is important, 

not just for the improvement of higher 

education quality in the region, but also as 

bargaining power in the regional level, 

since AUN is attractive due to its intensity 

in conducting intra-regional programs as 

well as improving the cooperation of 

ASEAN with the university partners 

beyond ASEAN such as ASEAN+3 and 

EU (Rezasyah, Konety, Rifawan, & 

Wardhana, 2017)(Gill, 2018).  

Talking the Practices of Integration in 

ASEAN: University Experiences 

AUN has been contributing 

significantly in spearheading the 

integration of higher education 

institutions in ASEAN by creating 

measurement system and quality 

assurance which enabled the member 

universities to have the same standard 

and equal footing in term of higher 

education (Rezasyah et al., 2017).  

However, as mentioned previously, AUN 

still does not have an open membership, 

and it has postponed the application of 

many universities to join the AUN. The 

current programs are dominantly under 

the umbrella of the AUN-QA to many 

universities across ASEAN. Hasanudin 

University in Indonesia received a 

visitation from the AUN-QA team in 

February 2018 for three of their 

undergraduate programs after six other 

programs also have passed the AUN-QA 

by December 2016 and August 2017 

(Puluhulawa, 2018). The successful result 

of assessment from the board of AUN-QA 

assessor, however, does not mean that the 

university is qualified to become the full 

member of the AUN. Here, it can be 

argued that the AUN is the exclusive 

platform that needs to maintain its 

exclusivity to remain effective in works 

and efficient in term of decision making to 

foster the process of integration.  

Thus, the role of AUN here is the 

driver for integration. It is easy to say that 

the logic of exclusive membership of AUN 

is like the exclusive membership of the 

Security Council - it exists that way to 

make the world peace sustainable. Yet, in 

term of education, the network like AUN, 

which could foster the development of the 

colleges and universities, need to be more 

inclusive in term of membership and 

create more programs that support the 

inclusion of the higher education in the 

region.  



Journal of ASEAN Studies   127 
 

The effort to create inclusive 

program might have already taken place 

within the body of the AUN. The creation 

of AUN-SEEDNet (AUN-Southeast Asia 

Engineering Education Network) is an 

effort of the AUN to create more specified 

network catering more specific issue about 

curriculum and other matters that perhaps 

only become the needs of certain faculty. 

Nevertheless, other universities that are 

not capable of entering these exclusive 

networks (but feel the necessity to have 

the network for cooperation), have begun 

to create new association like AsTEN 

(ASEAN Teacher Education Network). 

AsTEN proposed to be a leading network 

of Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) of 

ASEAN members and serves as the 

medium for collaboration in research and 

academic activities within and across 

members (AsTen, 2015). The AUN has 

also capable to undergo the AUN-QA 

system to many universities across 

ASEAN, makes the AUN remain solid as 

the most legitimate institutions of higher 

education integration in ASEAN, as part 

of the ASEAN Vision to create ASEAN 

Community that aimed to build resilient 

in university student in ASEAN to face the 

global market of workforce competition.  

Thailand Universities: The Pattern 

In Thailand, the current guiding 

principle for higher education policy is the 

20-year national strategy grand 

framework (Inside Thailand, 2016). It aims 

to achieve the goals of Thailand 4.0 

industrial revolution, which among other 

is to make Thailand a high-income 

country based on knowledge-economy, 

where the quality of human capital is 

crucial. Universities, here, are expected to 

follow the framework and contribute to 

the achievement of the goals. 

University A, ranked as top three in 

Thailand, has a big vision of 

internationalization in term of students, 

lectures and staffs. The three aspects of 

internationalization of higher education 

that involved the students, staffs, and 

lectures are well-preserved by the office of 

international relations of this university.  

University A, among other universities in 

Thailand, has a strategy to make research 

as its main form of international 

collaboration with international public, 

not limited to education and research 

institute, but also government, 

international governmental organizations 

and non-governmental organizations. It 

appears that it has already successfully 

implemented the current cooperation 

within the ASEAN University Network as 

the regional framework, and bilateral 

Memorandum of Understanding with the 

United Kingdom, Norwegian Government 

and also another particular university 

across the globe. Besides, the role of 

government is strong here, since 

University A is working with Thailand 

Government’s program of Thailand 4.0 

under the Prime Minister Prayuth Chan 

O-Cha and the university is also becoming 

the spear of glocalization of the higher 

education in Thailand with the people-

center development as the main engine to 

foster development of Thailand both 

inward and outward.  



128  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

Like other non-English speaking 

countries, language is an enormous issue 

in Thailand. However, in an era of 

growing international network with the 

system of complex interdependence of 

research and the university as the main 

actor, these universities need to overcome 

the barrier. Vocational training for both 

academic and administration staffs is 

preeminent not only for the development 

of their capacity, but also for preparing 

the regional integration itself. As the 

university with an exclusive membership 

of the AUN, University A gains benefit 

that eases them in getting the regional 

partner for research and teaching 

collaboration. As a university with well-

known medical school, the university has 

taken a great effort to remain as decent 

university along the time, helped by many 

networks they join in the international 

level.  

Different from University A, 

University B in Bangkok is the national-

public-autonomous university that 

ranked-well in the area of Agriculture and 

Forestry. This university has strategy to 

gain as many partner as possible without 

seeing the university rank as the one that 

really matters. Not being a member of 

AUN, thus, they could not gain better 

exposure for decent university partner. 

The university is focusing in more 

university-to-university arrangements 

under a centralized system within the 

university where all international affairs 

of the university are centralized to the 

main international division office. It has 

proven well since University B already 

gained improvement in the number of 

international students and also ranks in 

Agriculture department despite the 

downward trend of the whole university 

ranking.  They believed that it is due to 

the rise of the specialized university in 

Science and Technology such as the King 

Mongkut University of Technology 

Thonburi, as well as the demographic 

problem of the ageing society that 

consequently create the issue of student-

university imbalance proportion. Despite 

all the issues, University B is committed to 

always open for wide-range international 

cooperation as well as improving its 

specialty in Agriculture and Forestry.  

Improving only certain department 

in a university, however, has its own 

weakness. Media coverage mostly brings 

the university rank instead of certain 

department ranks. In term of networking 

itself, University B is a university with 

realistic view that it is hard to get a 

membership in the AUN. Thus, they are 

becoming the university with more open 

arm and receiving as many offers of 

partnership as they could, and plan to 

expand their partnership to be vastly 

developed first. As further steps, they are 

also open to be a part of universities 

network. For one example, they are the 

member of AsTEN, representing Thailand 

in the association.  

Based on the experiences of the 

selected Thailand universities in this 

paper, there are possibly two ways that 

could be identified on how university 

reacting the face-off in the regional 

competitive networks of higher education 

entities. The first is the more selective 



Journal of ASEAN Studies   129 
 

approach where university with high 

reputation leveraging their status to gain 

more exposure for strategic partners. 

Second, the more emancipative, open-arm 

university that believed ranks and 

exclusive membership does not really 

matter if you could reach out universities 

that less-seen by the more advanced and 

high-rank universities.  

Indonesian Universities: The Pattern 

Although international education 

activity has started long before the 

existence of Indonesia as a sovereign 

country, the beginning of 

internationalization efforts to boost up the 

competitiveness of Indonesian universities 

have just started recently (Dewi, 2018). 

Intense attention towards research and 

publication activities as well as 

international partnership and 

collaboration have only become priorities 

in the past ten years. In Southeast Asia, 

despite Indonesia is major player in 

regional economic affairs, it is not in 

education.  

The capacity of the office of 

international affairs or international 

relations in Indonesia is different from one 

higher education institution to the other. 

Some are already powerful enough to 

conduct independent cooperation with 

other universities. University D as one of 

the top-tier universities even ever hosted 

international guests from China that 

coming from various universities. Some 

other have already had long-cooperation 

with universities abroad. University C, for 

example, has cooperation with Tenri 

University in Japan and Ajou University, 

Korea as well as other institutions that 

could provide scholarships for the 

graduates. In some cases of small 

universities, the activity of international 

cooperation is not strong enough to make 

the office of international affairs exercise 

their function. 

 As a member of the AUN, 

University D optimizes the leverage of its 

membership by joining various AUN 

meetings such as the AUN Rector 

Meeting, AUN International Office 

Meeting, AUN Transfer Meeting, AUN 

Business, as well as doing community 

engagement internationally across the 

region of Southeast Asia. There is a shared 

belief among many universities in 

Indonesia that inward-looking vision 

must dominate the purpose of the 

internationalization of the university. 

University D, University C, and 

University E has the same voice on 

internationalizing Indonesia to the world. 

When Indonesia is well-known for its 

strong political power in the region, the 

university are trying to vie with the other 

universities across the region.  

Yet, the problem with integration is 

always about strategic planning of 

cooperation and partnership with other 

universities and companies related to 

research and innovation as the output of 

the joint-research. University D has many 

partnerships with engineering companies. 

The priority to be discussed in the 

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) 

will be about the copyright and patent of 

the research output and product. This is 

also the case in greater Southeast Asia as it 



130  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

is still developing region with various 

regulative issue of property rights. In the 

case of the AUN, it has The AUN 

Intellectual Property Network as the 

network coordinated by Chulalongkorn 

University and another member of the 

AUN to understand the implementation 

of the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-

Related Aspects of Intellectual Property 

Rights. This case shows the significance of 

AUN engaging university in the economic 

deal and to act as the provider of scientific 

argument on the table (Techakumphu, 

2016). 

In the case of University E, as also 

one of the prestigious universities in 

Indonesia, it earns benefit from AUN 

membership through its role in the 

decision making of higher education 

integration in ASEAN. The university 

itself has an adaptive principle, in which it 

believe that regional framework and 

national regulation shall be adopted by 

the university in certain way that suited ti 

the university characteristic. The system of 

its internationalization is decentralization 

system. It means University E utilizes the 

smaller unit within the university to 

handle the operation of international 

affairs while maintaining the legal 

discussion in the international office in 

university level.  

The existence of international unit in 

each faculty make the system transparent 

in its implementation and monitoring by 

the office of international affairs. The 

decentralization system aimed to find the 

hidden jewel that may foster the 

international cooperation of the university 

even further. In addition, University E 

also highlighted that its programs and 

systems were sometimes emulated by 

other institutions, yet they are rather 

optimistic by saying that improvement of 

partner universities is a good sign of 

collaboration. It means that they are 

successful in placing the benchmark on 

what constitute a good program. Trying to 

be the norm entrepreneurs seems to be the 

goal for University E in term of 

internationalization in national and 

regional level. 

The importance of setting a 

benchmark as one institution’s main 

aptitude is corresponded to the statement 

of University F, G and H during the focus 

group discussion. It demonstrates that one 

university is leading on that issue. For 

example, if University E are succesful in 

setting benchmark for community 

engagement program across Indonesia, 

University G, as leading education and 

pedagogy-based university, is also leading 

in teaching pedagogy, setting benchmark 

as one of the earliest universities in 

ASEAN teaching the arts of pedagogy. 

University H, as private university, seems 

to be more proactive and leading in the 

number of international cooperation they 

have among the private universities in 

Bandung. The active role of International 

Office and full-support -with less-hassle- 

from the university bureaucracy are 

making it easier for faculty to gain more 

opportunity to cooperate with various 

university across the globe.  

Assessing the Regional Integration: on What 

Stage are we on? 



Journal of ASEAN Studies   131 
 

Role of the Central Government 

The role of government is vital in 

facilitating the process of 

internationalization in ASEAN. The policy 

of higher education becomes the umbrella 

of the direction of universities to 

formulate their vision and missions, also 

to further exercise their strategies to 

achieve them.  

In the context of international 

cooperation, Indonesia for example, the 

Ministry of Research, Technology, and 

Higher Education has a specialized sub 

directorate to support university 

cooperation domestically and 

internationally (Kemenristekdikti, 2015). 

Bureau of Cooperation and Public 

Communication is one of sub-organ right 

under the General Secretary of Ministry of 

Research, Technology, and Higher 

Education of Indonesia that is responsible 

to handle the cooperation activities of the 

ministry, between Indonesia (as a state or 

represented by the university) and 

another country or universities abroad. 

The existence of these sub directorate and 

bureau are important in order to support 

the Office of International Affairs in each 

university to be able to compete in the 

international level.  

As for Thailand, the Office of the 

Higher Education Commission (OHEC) is 

appointed under the Ministry of 

Education to promote Thailand’s higher 

education, and to formulize the policy 

recommendations with international 

perspectives. The special Bureau of 

International Cooperation Strategy is also 

established under the OHEC, with some 

tasks are to formulate strategies and 

implement international cooperation 

activities on higher education sector 

(OHEC, 2017). 

Role of Networks in Join Research and 

University Partnership 

Cooperation among universities in 

the development of education and degree 

system as well as in in-depth research is 

important. Research-based universities 

such as University A, University D, and 

other universities across the region believe 

that research network is the most 

important part for the university 

development. Gill (2018) believed that the 

effort in creating functional regionalism in 

research collaboration is successful when 

no significant function barrier exists 

achieve it. It is the sign that theoretically, 

the existence of AUN and the expansion of 

university partner and dialogue partner 

shall excel the programs even further. The 

AUN is the way to excel the process to 

gain more decent research partner for the 

university. Imagine, if one university 

needs to conduct MoU to each university, 

they would like to have cooperation and 

joint research, how many MoU they need 

to make and keep it sustainable and active 

each year? More than hundred. The 

networks like AUN, SEEDNet, and 

AsTEN are the proper medium and 

efficient platform for the university in 

gaining more connections in term of 

exchange programs for staff, lectures and 

student as well as getting the university 

partners in terms of research for short, 

middle or long-term basis. 



132  Questioning the Regional Integration  
 

University A, B, C, and D admitted 

that the alumni networks is one of the 

important benefactors for generating 

research partner for the universities. 

University D said that dozens of the joint 

research emerge from the relations with 

the alumni in many well-known 

institutions across the globe. However, 

University B is rather hesitant in 

promoting themselves to university 

partner. Some universities might have 

seen university rank as big matter. The 

ranking of university seems to ‘indicate’ 

the capability of the university in teaching 

and research. The ranking also creates the 

bigger gap in the international network, 

since good-ranked university many times 

only wanted to cooperate with 

universities from their rank, and vice 

versa. The university ranking seemingly 

has become counter-intuitive, since it is 

creating more disparities among 

universities and makes the cooperation is 

harder for middle-rank to low-rank 

university group to get decent research 

and teaching counterpart. 

Roles of University’s Offices of 

International Relations 

Offices of International Affairs or 

International Relations (OIA) hold a vital 

role for universities to socialize in the 

international networks. Some offices of 

international relations work only for the 

hospitality purposes, holding the 

reception of international guest as well as 

facilitating the MoU without participating 

in the implementation of the MOU. There 

are also cases where the offices have the 

extensive role to the level that the office 

controls the whole system of international 

affairs across the university starting from 

the planning, signing the legal agreement, 

implementation as well as evaluation of 

the program. OIA from highly reputable 

universities such as University A, 

University D, and University E, have these 

extensive roles. Yet some other 

universities new to internationalization 

like University C is still trying to build its 

measurement about the role of the 

international office. Overlapping roles of 

the international office with the office of 

academic and student affairs sometimes 

become an issue in the university 

management.  

In facing regional integration of 

higher education, OIA is challenged by 

the fast development of the networks. 

Those who could beat the pace will be 

able to excel in the development of their 

ranks and status in the region, those who 

fail, decided to make their own initiatives 

to adjust their pace. Every action has their 

own rationales, since the process of 

regional integration is not a rally to prove 

which networks are better, but instead 

working in parallel to create better 

education of the region.  

The AUN, for example, demands the 

extensive role of the international offices 

to handle not only the quality assurance 

system and programs of the AUN that 

works beyond the level of university 

agreement, but also the active 

participation and mobility of the student, 

and also staffs (both academic and 

administrative). Facing this face-off, some 

universities find it hard, but along the 



Journal of ASEAN Studies   133 
 

time, some universities like Hasanudin 

University in Indonesia, University of 

Economics of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, 

Universiti Teknologi Malaya in Malaysia, 

and some other universities have been 

coping up the race by becoming the 

associate member of the AUN-QA. 

Conclusion 

Under certain circumstances, 

regional integration could entirely benefit 

the institutions, but sometimes, it also 

could hamper the development of the 

actors when they are not ready. Most 

ASEAN countries believed in the common 

interest they had on creating the vast 

community with depth and 

multidimensional integration as part of 

the ASEAN Community that gradually 

integrated ASEAN in every 10-year-phase. 

The integration of higher education in 

ASEAN through the ASEAN University 

Network is believed to be the 

(un)intended impact of the spill-over of 

the regional integration. As the result, the 

AUN has not yet entirely cover the whole 

level of higher education in ASEAN. 

Instead, they work in more intensive and 

exclusive environment, enabling them to 

effectively take a measurement of their 

membership as well as ease the process of 

decision making. The AUN will not 

always being the exclusive circle that will 

evolve gradually. The burden of proof is 

not entirely answered on whether or not 

AUN could provide equality for all. For 

now, they are trying to provide the 

equality in form of AUN-QA to university 

wish to admit for quality assurance. In the 

future, the discourse might change. 

This paper has been discussing the 

undergoing research on current dynamics 

of regionalization process of higher 

education in ASEAN by analyzing the 

AUN and specifically taking the case 

studies from selected Indonesian and Thai 

universities. Therefore, future assessment 

by taking different approach that also 

examines other higher education 

institutions in other ASEAN member 

states will be very beneficial for the 

advancement of the study. 

Acknowledgment 

This research was supported by 

the Universitas Padjadjaran Internal 

Research Grant year 2017-2018. We would 

like to extend our appreciation for all the 

resource persons from the selected 

institutions and organizations for their 

participation in completing the data 

collection in this research.  

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