教育ネットワークセンター年報, 2017, 17, 13 -21（論文｜プロジェクト研究）

Regionalizing Higher Education in East Asia: the Asia
Education Leader Course as a specific but distinctive
case
Sicong Chen (Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University)
Yoshifumi Shimizu (Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University)
Following worldwide tendencies, higher education in East Asia has experienced
internationalization and, more recently, regionalization. Against the backdrop of theinternationalization overviewed in the first part of this paper, the second part reviews themain patterns of regionalization initiatives in East Asia, which seem to be either
top-down with political rationale or bottom-up with economic motivation. Viewing theAsia Education Leader Course (AELC) as a specific case of the regionalizing higher
education in East Asia but distinctive in its design, the third part connects the programme
to the theoretical discussion of higher education regionalization and highlights its design
features. The fourth part draws on the data of interviews with AELC students to discuss
the programme design from students’ viewpoint. The paper at last suggests that we need amore diverse understanding of approaches to regionalizing higher education in East Asia.
Keywords: higher education, internationalization, regionalization, East Asia, Asia Education Leader
CourseI.

Higher education internationalization in East Asia

Riding on the tide of globalization, universities around the world have been observed to
devote tremendous efforts to becoming international universities. Yet higher educationinternationalization is not a uniform process. While policies and strategies are introduced
for the internationalization of universities, they are often different and diverse inintention, design and practice. Nevertheless it is possible to identify one basic feature intheprocess.

Wächteretal.

(1999)

defineintheEuropeancontext

that‘internationalization of higher education is understood as the process of integrating aninternational dimension into the teaching and research function of a higher education
institution’ (p.12, emphasis added). Among European countries, the well-known Erasmus
Programme was launched in 1987; and several kinds of educational and vocational
programmes have also been collaboratively conducted by higher education institutions
across national borders.

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第 17 号

The background and approach of higher education internationalization in East Asia
are quite different from those in the EU. While it may be true to say that Asian countries
have yet established any shared, strong and stable platform for the internationalization inthis region, there has been increased support by individual governments for the endeavour.
For instance, there have emerged several international programmes led by the Ministry ofEducation and Science in Japan. One of them is the ‘Global 30’ Project, which is seen as
an effort to make Japan an international education hub. The programme provides a rangeof English-conducted courses to attract international students and develop international
human resources. There are currently thirteen universities involved in the programme
since 2010. Another main programme is the ‘Top Global University’ Project, whose aim
is to drive more Japanese universities up onto the list of top 100 universities in the world.
It involves 37 universities since 2014, including the above thirteen ‘Global 30’universities. Similar government-initiated programmes can be found in other East Asiancountries. In Korea, ‘Brain Korea’ was launched in 2011 and is now on its second phase
under the name of ‘BK21 PLUS’ (Brain Korea 21 Program for Leading Universities &Students). It can be discussed that East Asian governments generally take a positive andeven active role in facilitating the internationalization of the higher education sector, theprocess of which is often interpreted as producing more top-ranked universities in theworld.

II. Higher education regionalization in East Asia
As a ‘notable evolution’ of the internationalization overviewed in the last section,
regionalization is observed in higher education development worldwide, including in East
Asia, in recent years (Knight 2013: 105). According to Knight (2013), higher education
regionalization is the ‘process of building closer collaboration and alignment amonghigher education actors and systems within a defined area or framework called a region’(p. 113-4). The East Asian region referred to in this paper covers, following Pempel(2005: 25), both Southeast Asia represented by the ten member states of the Associationof South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Northeast Asia including Japan, China,Taiwan and Korea. There is no East Asian counterpart to the European Higher Education
Area (EHEA) featuring highly institutionalized regional collaborations from student
mobility and quality assurance to credit transfer and mutual recognition; and Chao (2014:560) observes that the establishment of such counterpart ‘cannot be seen in the nearfuture’. Nonetheless, there have been increased initiatives developed for collaboration－14－

Regionalizing Higher Education in East Asia: the Asia Education Leader Course as a specific but distinctive caseamong higher education systems in East Asia, with Southeast Asia putting in ‘most efforts’(Knight 2013: 107), against the background of Southeast Asian regionalism originally forpolitical but increasingly for economic purposes (Chao 2014). Among the efforts are,notably, the initiatives of ASEAN Higher Education Area (AHEA) and ASEAN
International Mobility for Students Programme (AIMS).
Compared with Southeast Asia, the regionalization of higher education in Northeast
Asia is less vigorous, with less initiatives and mechanisms to facilitate the process. The
most institutionalized higher education programme in place at this sub-regional level so
far is the Collective Action for the Mobility Programme of University Students in Asia
(CAMPUS ASIA), initiated and involved by the trilateral parties of Japan, China andKorea. Currently focusing on student exchange at the undergraduate level and joint/dual
degree programme at the graduate level, CAMPUS ASIA, as Chun (2016) examines, isgovernment-driven, in the sense that it is derived from the political will of the leaders of
the three governments to increase mutual understanding and encourage stability in theregion, led by the governments from planning to implementation and management, andfunded by respective governments. Chun (2016) discusses that this top-down nature is
one of the two ways that CAMPUS ASIA differentiates itself from other student exchange
programmes autonomously managed at the university level. The other characteristic is
discussed to be its trilateral rather than originally bilateral exchange and collaboration
between the three higher education systems.
While the CAMPUS ASIA case illustrates the kind of regionalization driven by
top-down political rationale, ‘the majority’ of bottom-up cross-border collaborations by
individual universities are observed by Chun (2016: 282) to be motivated by economicrationale, which is seen as a result of higher education marketization and the attendant
growth of private sector and financial diversification in the domain in East Asia in the1990s. The differences suggest that there are at least two approaches in sub-regional andregional higher education collaboration in East Asia: the top-down approach with
political rationale and the bottom-up approach with economic rationale. This study
focuses on the Asia Education Leader Course (AELC), a specific case distinct from thetwo approaches above in the higher education regionalization in Northeast Asia.

III. Asia Education Leader Course: a regionalization case with distinctive design
Knight (2013) provides two useful analytical tools for understanding regional highereducation initiatives: the conceptual mapping of regionalization terms, and the model of－15－教育ネットワークセンター年報

第 17 号functional, organizational and political approaches (FOPA). First, the mapping produces
on a continuum four groups of terms often used in the analysis of higher education
regionalization, from the first group of terms including cooperation and collaboration that
represents a loose and open relationship at one end to the fourth group of terms such as
integration that represents a formalized, institutionalized and comprehensive relationshipat the other end. In between there are the second group of terms like coordination andalignment that suggests an organizational relationship and the third group of terms
including harmonization and convergence that entails some systemic changes at theinstitutional and national levels. While Knight (2013) importantly cautions that placing
the terms on a continuum does not mean that regionalization would progress along it inreality because different regions might have different goals in regionalization, it is still
helpful to consider the continuum as a four-level indicator of the intensity ofregionalization in higher education. The second analytical tool is the FOPA model, whichclarifies the different focuses of regional initiatives into three – the focus on the functions,the focus on the organizational architecture, and the focus on the decision-making andformalizing process.
The AELC is a cross-border joint education programme launched in 2014. Proposedand coordinated by the Graduate School of Education at Tohoku University, theprogramme is co-run by six partner institutes in five universities across Japan, Taiwan,
China and Korea, which host in rotation AELC summer/winter courses open to graduate
students of all partner institutes, with a student quota of five to each partner each time. 1
The AELC has established its education goal (for future education researcher, teacher
leader, and education administrator), curriculum framework (known as ‘the rainbow
curriculum’, each summer/winter course in 2016-2018 opening three subjects to matchthe three clusters of knowledge, attitude and skill on the basis of practice), andqualification standard (a joint certificate of completion awarded provided that at least six
subjects, no less than two from each cluster, are participated and passed). Also it has built
up an administrative procedure to connect partner institutes and cover from student
recruitment to student feedback collection (Tanaka et al. 2015). But the contents of thethree subjects in each summer/winter course are currently at the discretion of the hostinstitute; and while constructing a common regional identity is often posited as animportant part in regionalization initiatives, the AELC remains short of overt expressionof promoting Asian citizenship, despite that it does provide important learning resourcesand opportunities for the development of the regional identity (Chen 2017). It can be
discussed that the AELC, if measured by the four-level indicator of regionalization－16－Regionalizing Higher Education in East Asia: the Asia Education Leader Course as a specific but distinctive caseintensity based on the discussion of Knight (2013), is a joint education programmereaching the second level describable by terms like coordination and alignment, giventhat it is beyond a loose partnership, yet short of institutional adaptation of it inindividual partner institutes. Also, as the AELC is designed with the focus on education
practice, it can be seen as an initiative taking the functional other than the organizationalor the political approach to higher education regionalization.
The birth of the AELC is different from the aforementioned two approaches tohigher education collaboration in East Asia. Unlike the top-down approach of which
CAMPUS ASIA is the epitome, the AELC is a programme initiated autonomously byinstitutes within universities in the region at the bottom; and its tuition exemption policy
suggests that it is not motivated by economic purposes, which are observed to be thedriving force of many bottom-up cross-border collaborations.
So far we have identified the nature of the AELC with reference to some theoreticalmeasures of higher education regionalization, and highlighted its distinctive bottom-up
and non-economic-motivated feature. A further specification of the design (and limits) of
the AELC below will show in more detail its distinctions from, as well as similarities
with, other cross-border education programmes.
Multilateral partnership. The partnership of six institutes across four education
systems in Northeast Asia qualifies the programme as not only a concrete regionalizationcase, but a programme with perhaps the widest coverage of education systems among
existing bottom-up joint education programmes in the region, not to mention in theacademic field of education.
Summer/winter courses in rotating venues. The qualification design of the AELC
requires students to participate in more than one summer/winter course and, accordingly,
to stay, normally two weeks, in more than one university and city. Unlike other short-term
programmes which are often one-off, this design gives students chance to reunite andmaintain network with peers from different universities by keeping attending thesummer/winter courses of the programme.
English as the instruction language. Similar with many cross-border educationprogrammes existing in the region, the AELC is an English-medium programme, although
English is not the first language of the instructors or students. There has been internal
discussion that the programme should serve as a unique platform, given its designed
diverse student composition, for students to learn more about the languages in the region.
Non-degree programme. In its current form the AELC does not lead up to a degree,
though it was initially designed as a stepping stone towards a joint degree programme.

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Instead, the AELC awards a joint certificate of completion containing the signatures ofthe leaders of all six partner institutes. Without the restraints of degree qualification,
there is currently little quality assurance mechanism in place for the AELC.
This section has specified the key features of the AELC, which is born out of thehigher education regionalization in East Asia. How is the AELC with such designreflected in students’ perceptions of and experiences in the programme? In the next
section we shall address the question.

IV. The AELC in students’ perspective
To rule out possible institutional and social factors that might influence student’s
perception and experience, we focused on AELC students from Graduate School ofEducation in Tohoku University to examine the programme in the eyes of students. Aninterview was designed to explore AELC student’s motivation behind and experience inthe programme in general. We interviewed, in the semi-structured and one-to-one mannerin September and October 2016, five Tohoku AELC students who had participated in atleast one summer/winter course and were selected because of availability (Table 1).

Previous short-term
GenderStudent year

Academic fieldstudying abroadexperience

AFemaleMaster’s Year 2

Cultural Anthropology

NoBFemale

Master’s Year 1

Clinical Psychology

YesCFemale

Master’s Year 1

Psychology

NoDFemale

Master’s Year 2

Curriculum Studies

NoE

Male

Master’s Year 2

Curriculum Studies

Yes

Table 1: Information about the five AELC student interviewees from Tohoku University

There are at least three aspects mentioned and favoured by the students intheir narratives of the AELC experience that are relevant to the programme design.
The first is the orientation of the programme in the academic field of education.
This was pointed out particularly by students who had previous short-term
studying abroad experience.

－18－Regionalizing Higher Education in East Asia: the Asia Education Leader Course as a specific but distinctive case[Those short-term programmes I participated before] were like general
education, very shallow [in terms of contents], and lectures on broad
subjects taking a big proportion…AELC had more in the field ofeducation and contents that I am personally interested in. (IntervieweeB)
The knowledge learnt in it was important. What was more was thenetwork [of peers in the field of education across the region built in theprogramme]…Also it was good to have the opportunities to visit local
education-related institutions which would not be accessible if I was
not a participant of the programme. (Interviewee E)
The second aspect is the presence of, and the attendant opportunities toexchange and corporate with, students from across the region in virtually everyclass. Interestingly, it was the students without previous short-term studying
abroad experience who explicitly referred to this feature. This might be because
the international or regional learning environment of this programme was fresh forthem but less for those already having relevant experience. The third aspect
mentioned by the students, regardless of having previous studying broad
experience or not, is the use of English as the instruction language. Some students
mentioned and embraced the language aspect because there was little chance
before to develop their individual academic learning in the English-medium
setting. For one student, however, it was the attitude towards using English in theclass by person whose first language was not English that inspired and gave her apositive experience.
What impressed me in the class was not the subject content but theinstructor, whose English was not very good and required listener great
effort to catch his words...He, however, spoke loudly and confidently
to try to send out his message…And it was amazing that I could catch
what he wanted to say! That’s the most important thing I leant in thatclass…If you have something to say, isn’t it just fine to speak in a loudand confident way [despite of language barrier]? (Interviewee C)
The interview data suggest that the students’ positive perceptions of and－19－教育ネットワークセンター年報

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experiences in the programme were related to, specifically but not exclusively, itsregional class setting with the orientation in the field of education and the use ofEnglish as the instruction language. This finding helps identify the strengths of theparticular programme, and, furthermore, implies ways to improve students’experience for bottom-up and function-driven cross-border programmes alike inthe region and beyond.

V. Implications
This paper outlined the higher education internationalization and regionalizationin East Asia and showcased the AELC as a specific but distinctive case of theregionalizing East Asian higher education. It also drew on the data of interviews
with AELC students to highlight the relevance of the programme design to student
perception

ofandexperience

non-economic-motivatedandintheprogramme.

function-driven

Asabottom-up,

programme

withmultilateral-partnership, the AELC serves as an alternative case to the main
patterns of cross-border higher education initiatives in the region. By presenting
the distinctive case, the paper suggests that there needs to be a more diverse
understanding of approaches to regionalizing higher education in East Asia.

Acknowledgement
The interview data used in this paper is from the project ‘International Student Mobility inEast Asia: A New Model?’ funded by the Education Network Center Project Research Grant
2016 in Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University. We would like to thank theinterviewees for their participation in this research.

Note
1

The six partner institutes are (1) Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University, Japan;(2) College of Education, National Chengchi University, Taiwan; (3) School of Education
Science and (4) School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, China; (5) Department ofEducation, Korea University, Korea; and (6) College of Education, National Taiwan NormalUniversity, Taiwan. More information about the AELC is available on its website:
http://www.sed.tohoku.ac.jp/~aelc/ .

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Regionalizing Higher Education in East Asia: the Asia Education Leader Course as a specific but distinctive case

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