22 December 2021

Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti on SHARE Policy Dialogue 13: Contribution of Internationalization to Graduate Employability

By
AUN Writer Team

By Janesza Kaye Santos, AUN Intern

Continuing the SHARE Seminar, AUN Executive Director Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti discussed the roles of the AUN in pushing forward the socio-economic development of the ASEAN region through collaboration with the leading ASEAN Higher Education Universities. Also, on how AUN faces the issue of Graduate Employability even before establishing AUN Quality Assurance over 20 years ago.  Hence, it has been embedded with the AUN-QA's system and standards until today. Dr. Choltis mentioned that even with the lockdowns due to the pandemic, AUN-QA continues to work on education program assessments through remote site visits and utilizing the international team of assessors. 

Dr. Choltis argues that we are all aware of the issues of graduate employability and more so in the digital age because of the lockdown. For instance, within AUN, the organization started discussing the impacts of graduate employability on Higher Education in the digital age in 2017. He also mentioned that this problem exists within the ASEAN Region because of the universities' uneven state development, particularly on the practice of outcome-based education and on the study program level.  As this continues to emerge, AUN-QA utilizes international cooperation to assist and, by some means, alleviate this problem. 

Furthermore, from the perspective of the AUN, it collectively identified several issues concerning graduate employability. Dr. Choltis emphasized that it is essential to accommodate the high potential students and nurture the next global leaders to serve the goals of SDGs. Additionally, mobilization of knowledge, skills, and interaction should be highlighted to be fully aware of their culture and be able to have experience learning in a diverse and multidisciplinary setting. To conclude, Dr. Choltis emphasized that there must be a change in how universities teach from the academic perspective and how students learn from it so that autonomous learning can be used to achieve an effective solution for graduate employability.