Promoting ASEAN awareness at the higher education chalkface.

• Author: Azmawati, Dian

This research note outlines a project-in-progress, in the hope of soliciting broader participation and discussion. It describes and evaluates a joint initiative between two regional universities to promote inter-class contact and active learning on the subject of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and supplements the experience gained in this endeavour through interviews with practising lecturers. Based on these twin research thrusts, the note argues that the higher education chalkface is a vital arena for ASEAN community-building, and pleads for a more concerted effort to link politics and pedagogy. To this end, recommendations include: cooperating to generalize and extend the kinds of small-scale projects discussed in this article; establishing an inclusive, interactive, teaching-oriented website where ideas and material can be shared; setting up a platform where the results of student-driven research and initiatives can be made available; and organizing practitioner-oriented workshops where lecturers can access combined expertise of ASEAN officials, national diplomats and pedagogical specialists to construct practical, active, and cooperative teaching programmes. If we are to fulfil the tasks of promoting ASEAN awareness, nurturing regional identity, and encouraging public ownership of the regional project among this highly significant sector of Southeast Asia's population, then facilitating the task of "teaching ASEAN" is an indispensable component.

Keywords: Southeast Asia, ASEAN awareness, higher education, regionalism, communication, pedagogy.

Pedagogy is now widely recognized as an integral part of International Relations (IR), with linkages traceable on many levels. Teaching can, of course, "inform scholarship", either through informal processes of joint discovery, (1) or by more formal frameworks that specifically involve "students as researchers". (2) More profoundly, however, teaching plays a role in knowledge production. As many scholars have pointed out, the IR universe is not comprehensible without studying what goes on inside its many classrooms. If "the teaching of IR helps shape self-understandings of the discipline", and is part of the subject's "constitution of meaning", (3) then it is important to "take a more direct interest in how world politics is explained to students in everyday schooling practices". (4)

In Southeast Asia, a particularly salient component of IR teaching is the part of the curriculum that deals with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Estimates of ASEAN awareness vary in their degree of optimism, but few are satisfied with the level such awareness has attained. (5) In attempts to root the three-pillared ASEAN Community more firmly in the context of Southeast Asian society and lived experience, pedagogical studies become vitally important. Lecturers and students are well placed to address these tasks, by encouraging debate, generating research and undertaking outreach activities.

This research note discusses a project undertaken over two academic years, in the context of two Southeast Asia-focused modules at two universities in Indonesia and Malaysia. It seeks to complement the excellent work that has already been done on mapping the IR environment in Southeast Asia and scrutinizing some of its textbooks, (6) by offering a snapshot of some of the challenges and opportunities of specifically ASEAN-focused teaching.

This project is by no means complete. Eighteen months since its commencement, however, it seems timely to assess what has been learned, invite a response from other lecturers, researchers, and policymakers in Southeast Asia and further afield, and open up a fuller discussion of the teaching of ASEAN in the region's universities.

The research note is divided into four sections. The first discusses the context of the project and its rationale. The second reviews the "results" obtained in the teaching phases. The third draws on the outcomes from those two sessions of teaching and supplementary interviews to analyze a few of the challenges and opportunities which, in its early stages, the project has begun to identify. The fourth provides some recommendations that attempt to take into consideration the limitations (technological, financial and so on) faced by the ASEAN-publicity enterprise. At root, this research note is an evidence-based plea for more attention to pedagogy in the ASEAN context, and for more opportunities to share best practices and jointly tackle challenges.

The "Teaching ASEAN" Project

Context (7)

ASEAN's policymakers are by no means unfamiliar with the potential utility of higher education as a vehicle for ASEAN awareness-raising and community-building. The ASEAN University Network (AUN), established in 1995, now encompasses thirty regional universities and ten thematic networks. (8) Its most recent annual report affirms: "Boundless opportunities emerge for Higher Education Institutions to play a significant role in contributing to the ASEAN Community's advancement... It is a critical time to further intensify our efforts in developing higher education in ASEAN." (9) Among its strategic objectives, accordingly, are the promotion of "in-depth awareness" of ASEAN and "innovative teaching and learning for ASEAN Community". (10)

In an effort to promote these goals, the AUN has advanced important initiatives such as credit transfer schemes and quality assurance. Nevertheless, as the latest iteration of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) notes, "the significant differences in curricula and standards among institutions, limited financial resources for student and staff exchange, and language differences have all constrained progress". (11)

Despite the prominence of education as a key element of "people-to-people linkage", data gaps on intra-ASEAN student mobility persist, (12) and the AUN is itself aware of a raft of obstacles that hinder mobility, ranging from lack of funding to "unclear benefits". (13) The MPAC therefore notes the ongoing need to "support higher education exchange across ASEAN Member States", "ensure there are strong incentives for ASEAN students to study in other ASEAN Member States", and research "current student perceptions and barriers". (14)

Conscious that its actual membership is necessarily limited, the AUN has also attempted to reach out beyond its immediate circles to promote the wider reach of ASEAN-related materials. One such initiative is the AUN ASEAN Studies Academy, (15) which developed twenty-one modules (for example, Historical Development in ASEAN Economic Integration, ASEAN Security Cooperation, and Peace and Conflict Management), and gathered experts in 2012 to share their experience of these areas. Some of these contributions are still available on YouTube, although the materials referred to on the Academy website no longer seem available. A newer initiative, the ASEAN Cyber University, initially targeting the CLMV (Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam) states, involves ASEAN, the AUN and the Republic of Korea. (16) Here again, materials are available only to participating institutions, but not to all.

The ASEAN Secretariat's "Learning: Getting to Know ASEAN Better" website showcases ASEAN-relevant courses and research centres. (17) Its "ASEAN Studies Program" page lists, within Southeast Asia, three ASEAN Studies degree programmes; six Southeast Asian Studies degree programmes; seven ASEAN Centres; and four Southeast Studies Centres. (18) These lists are not exhaustive, however, as other ASEAN-focused institutes exist, and many programmes teach ASEAN as part of a broader curriculum.

The point here, of course, is that all these initiatives are welcome, but not yet sufficient. Only a few of the region's universities are involved in the current networking arrangements; (19) and only a minority of students (and staff) can avail themselves of exchange opportunities, regional role-play opportunities, and so on. Yet the task of promoting ASEAN awareness devolves on all.

The premise of the research project to be discussed below is that modest, bottom-up, class-based initiatives might effectively supplement at least some of the goals of these larger programmes. Such initiatives cost little, and potentially reach a wide audience. If they could be replicated and linked, their snowball effect could play a valuable role in raising ASEAN awareness in the university context. In order to put this supposition to the test, we embarked on the "Teaching ASEAN" project.

Rationale

Maryellen Weimer distinguishes among general educational research, discipline-based pedagogy and "the personal world of experiential knowledge". (20) Our contribution, while grounded in the first two categories, falls squarely into the third. The project started on a very practical level, as an attempt to observe and link two classes that were studying similar subject matter. The demands of classroom teaching (and ethical concerns) made it difficult to set up rigorous "before and after" tests with participating students. (21) Nevertheless, in its attempt to open up a space to share, evaluate, and build upon initiatives promoting active ASEAN learning, this research note aims to contribute to "thoughtful, reflective practice", and to demonstrate that "the study of teaching and learning as it occurs in courses by teachers vested in their practice is a unique form of scholarship". (22)

The project under discussion involved a second-year undergraduate class at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) in Indonesia, studying a module entitled "International Relations in Southeast Asia", and a third-year undergraduate class at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), studying a module entitled "Regionalism in World Politics: The Case of ASEAN". Both modules were taught in English. (23) While the syllabus of the first class was broader, ASEAN still occupied an important position within it. (24) The...