Building Asia’s platform for student mobility

By Hiep Pham. A time scale has been established for setting up a common credit transfer scheme between several South East Asian and neighbouring countries, which will be crucial for encouraging student mobility within Asia.
The Great Mekong Subregion – which includes Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and China – and neighbouring countries Japan and Korea, are working together to set up a higher education platform, similar to the European Union’s Erasmus programme, to increase mobility within the region.
The platform’s first plank will be a common credit transfer scheme, which could be adopted by all higher education institutions in the subregion as early as the next academic year (2013-14), according to Sauwakon Ratanawijitrasin, director of the South East Asian Ministers of Education Organisation – Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development (SEAMEO–RIHED), which organised a regional workshop in Bangkok last month. Read more...