2 July 2020

AUN ACTS steers student mobility through the pandemic

By
AUN Writer Team

The 12th AUN ACTS Steering Committee E-Meeting was successfully held on 24 June 2020 and hosted by Universitas Indonesia and the ACTS Secretariat.

The meeting engaged 46 participants from registrar offices, academic affairs, and international relations offices from 17 AUN Member Universities in 9 ASEAN countries, including the AUN Secretariat and the ACTS Secretariat.

Besides the report and update on ACTS online applications in 2019/2020 and the course database, the meeting also discussed academic policies and guidelines regarding the ACTS mobility programme for fall semester 2020. From the database, applications in the first half of 2020 were going downhill because of the pandemic and the protective measures of universities to suspend all inbound and outbound academic exchange in the said period. To minimise health risks to students that might arise during the semester abroad period, some universities would not operate student exchange programmes for the coming semester while some still welcome prospective students to join them in the upcoming months with online mode of teaching and learning. It is still uncertain if it will be possible for universities to resume physical academic mobility in 2021 as the pandemic still remains and borders remain closed.