Thailand is AUN Secretariat Chair

To breathe life into the work plan to operationalise the ASEAN University Network (AUN), Thailand will take a two-pronged approach - long term plans dedicated to institutional building will be run in tandem with short and medium term plans, said Prof. Kanok Wongtrangan. The Deputy Permanent Secretary of Thailand's Ministry of University Affairs elaborated on Thailand's plans for the AUN Secretariat at the First Meeting of the AUN Board of Trustees held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in November 1996.

"At the same time as we put up management infrastructure and procedure for operations and coordination, we need to implement some concrete programmes to put life into the AUN," said Prof. Kanok. As the AUN Board of Trustees Chair, Thailand will host the AUN Secretariat for three years and appoint a senior university official to serve as its executive director.

The AUN Secretariat will be responsible for planning, organising and monitoring the programmes, projects and activities of the AUN. Networking and information sharing among the participating universities and publicizing the AUN programmes will also come under its purview. It will also propose and develop ideas, innovations or mechanisms for sourcing and generating funds so that the network will be self-reliant and self-sustaining.

Among the programmes which the Board of Trustees expects to see launched quickly are staff and student exchanges. Also on the cards is a broad scheme which includes ASEAN studies, engineering, and science and technology and which will facilitate collaborative research. Prof. Kanok thought it important for the participating universities to design a medium term programme for disciplines where ASEAN universities had a comparative advantage. Tropical medicine and particular types of manufacturing technologies were two such fields. "Once we have worked out the disciplines where we are better than any other university, AUN will be on the world map of higher education," he added. Prof. Kanok estimates the AUN will achieve this goal in about five years - the same amount of time he allocates for the installation of the required infrastructure.

The First AUN Board of Trustees' Meeting was held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in November 1996 and jointly hosted by the ASEAN Secretariat and Universitas Gadjah Mada. In addition to identifying the chair of the board, the meeting clarified several other issues, while fine-tuning relevant decisions made during previous meetings.

The meeting decided that the Board will include as a permanent member the Chairperson of the ASEAN Sub-committee on Education (ASCOE) and will report directly to the ASEAN Ministers for Higher Education. As a flagship programme, the AUN will be qualify for funding under the ASEAN Fund. The Board of Trustees will meet again in Thailand in May 1997.