AI’s Role in Shaping the Future of Higher Education: AUN at the 20th IAUP Triennial Conference

The 20^th Triennial Conference International Association of University Presidents in Beijing, China was hosted by Sias University on 13-15 October, 2024. AUN had the honor to attend this prestigious conference and Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti, Executive Director of the AUN, had the opportunity to participate in one of the panel sessions on the topic of “AI’s Role in Shaping the Future of Education”. The session was moderated by Dr. Maurits van Rooijen, CEO of Global University Systems and also included the following speakers

• Dr. Anoop Swarup: Secretary General, Association of Universities Asia and the Pacific (AUAP)
• Dr. Jamienne Studley: President, WASC Senior Commission on Universities and Colleges (WSCUC)
• Prof. Xiangen Hu: Director, Institute for Higher Education Research and Development & Educational Research Center, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

At the moment, technological advancements are hitting the ASEAN higher education sector like a big tsunami wave, crashing through many universities. In the panel session, Dr. Choltis expounded on ASEAN’s digital transformation initiatives and AUN’s role in upskilling practitioners in the AI era by sharing about the talks he has attended in recent months. 

He shared the initiatives of the AUN Technology Enhanced Personalised Learning (AUN-TEPL) thematic network hosted by Singapore Management University, which recently organized the 4^th AUN-TEPL Symposium on the topic of “Advancing the Frontiers of Technology-enhanced Personalised Learning through Generative AI”.

A meeting Dr. Choltis attended in the Philippines was the Policy Forum 2024 that was conducted recently on 3-4 October focused on the Institutionalisation and Standardisation of Student Workload (Recognition Mechanism 2 or RM2) and Adoption of Authentic Assessment (RM3), which are two of the three central Recognition Mechanisms present in the “Measuring and Comparing Achievements of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Asia”, or the CALOHEA Project. However, the forum also heavily discussed the impact of AI on how curriculums are delivered, particularly in relation to how professors calculate student workload in order to facilitate deep learning as well as how to use authentic assessment of learning outcomes.

He also recently gave a talk at the ASEAN Cyber University (ACU) International Conference 2024 which highlighted digital transformation pathways and how AI has had an impact on higher education. The ACU project was initiated in 2009 and represents an ongoing collaboration between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and ASEAN with the primary goal to expand opportunities for higher education in ASEAN member states and strengthen relationships. The project offers a Learning Management System (LMS) and Open Educational Resources (OER) platforms, providing high-quality e-learning content to enhance skills, align academic programs with industry needs, and drive innovation across the region.

Dr. Choltis also took the opportunity to inform the audience about two upcoming events related to digital transformation and AI. The 19^th Libraries of the ASEAN University Network (AUNILO) Meeting which had already been conducted by the time of publishing this article, had the theme of “Enhancing Future Skills for Academic Libraries”, aiming to improve digital literacy for academic librarians. Then in December, the AUN-QA International Conference 2024 will be held in Viet Nam with the theme of “Embracing AI Integration, Database Utilization and Future Ready Quality Culture”.

In conclusion, the examples provided were meant to help paint the picture of the future of education for universities in Southeast Asia. As for the final keypoint, Dr. Choltis presented three considerations for the audience. The first is that quality standardization is still the key, our reaction and changes made due to the impact of AI still needs to center around standardization. The second point is that in order to cope with the changes, synergy of many programmes and projects must be invested in, such as the aforementioned AUN initiatives in libraries, technology enhanced personalised learning, and quality assurance. The third and last consideration is that collaboration within Southeast Asia is not enough. There needs to be collaboration not only within the region but also at the global level.

In the Q&A session, Dr. Choltis responded to a question concerning the role of humans versus AI in teaching other humans and whether machines should even be allowed to teach humans. From his experience in the ASEAN region, blended learning is currently very popular and he suspects this is the case because human interaction is still highly valued in many cultures in ASEAN countries, especially when it comes to family, and goes down to even the most basic of daily interactions such as eating meals together. The way to think about it is that we are still in the transitional period until the day that AI could distinguish the subtle human emotions such as the taste of food. But until that day arrives, universities are still valuable for students because it is the place where human interactions can still take place without the interference of machines. Furthermore, this was taken from his own experience after the end of the pandemic, he discovered through conversation with his own students that they came back on campus not with the desire to attend classes, but to meet friends that they have only ever interacted with behind a screen.

If you would like to read more about the other conferences that AUN took part in during the China Higher Education International Week in October 2024, please find the articles below for the other two events, the 3^rd Global University Associations Forum and the 2024 International Forum on Higher Education.

• AUN Engaged in Dialogue, Cooperation, and Joint Action at the 3^rd GUAF
• Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti, Shared AUN’s Experiences and Insights Regarding International Collaboration at the 2024 IFHE