February 19, 2008
Chiba City, Japan

EMERGING CHALLENGES AND
NEW INITIATIVES FORQUALITY ASSURANCE IN THE
ASIA PACIFIC REGION

CONCEPCION V. PIJANO
President-designate
Asia-Pacific Quality Network

The Asia Pacific Quality Network(APQN) Founded in Hong Kong in January 2003.
 Incorporated as an association in December
2004 in the State of Victoria, Australia.
 Administration of the Secretariat is hosted by
the Australian Universities Quality Agency.

Mission
To enhance the quality of higher educationin Asia and the Pacific region throughstrengthening the work of quality assurance
agencies and extending the cooperation
between them.

Objectives
The purposes of APQN are: to promote good practice in the maintenanceand improvement of quality in higher
education in the Asia-Pacific region.
 to provide advice and experience to assist
the development of new quality assurance
agencies in the region to facilitate links between quality assurance
agencies and acceptance of each others’
decisions and judgements.
 to assist members of APQN to determine
standards of institutions operating acrossnational borders.
 to permit better-informed internationalrecognition of qualifications throughout theregion.

Activities
 Dissemination of information throughnewsletters, documents, journals and books,
whether paper-based or in electronic form.
 Training and development through seminars,workshops and conferences.

Development Grant Facility
In 2004, the World Bank approved a grantto the APQN for a period of three years (untilDecember 2007) to strengthen its institutional
capacity and the technical capacity of its
member organizations.
Activities supported by the grant are:
 Workshops to build quality assurance
capacity in developing countries/territories.

 Consultancies and external reviewer services
to quality assurance agencies in developing
countries/territories.
 Regional staff exchanges and secondments
for capacity building.
 Project groups and regional information
clearinghouse.
 Liaison functions among other regionalorganizations working on quality assurance.

Capacity Deficits that Needto be Addressed:
1. The need for more qualified quality
assurance personnel in member countries;
2. A greater sharing of knowledge, expertiseand information in easily accessible form inEnglish and other widely spoken national
languages such as Chinese;
3. Electronic training packages and casestudies;4. The development of the database ofconsultants;
5. Reviewers to be accessible to members via
the website and the strengthening of the online discussion forum.

Global Initiative for Quality
Assurance Capacity (GIQAC)
a partnership between World Bank and
UNESCO to support capacity building inquality assurance of higher education indeveloping countries and countries intransition.

August 2007
Guidelines on Good Practice- “institutional and programmatic quality
and quality assurance are primarily theresponsibility of the higher education
institutions themselves”

Association of AmericanColleges and Universities
Council for Higher Education Accreditation

January 30, 2008
Washington, D.C.
New Leadership for Student Learning and Accountability- “the primary responsibility for achieving
excellence falls on the colleges and universities
themselves. Accrediting organizations have playeda significant role in advancing the assessment oflearning outcomes and must continue to do sowhile encouraging institutions to set the highest
possible standards”

London Communique
May 18, 2007
Towards the European Higher Education Area:
Responding to Challenges in a Globalized World- “main responsibility for quality lies withthe HEIs”

Brisbane Communique Initiative
February 18, 2008
Workshop on Higher Education Quality Assurance
in the Asia Pacific- Developing an agreed set of principles
for quality assurance in the broader Asia
Pacific.