Higher Education in Southeast Asia: Volume 49

This chapter examines five systemic issues that are at the core of the development of Cambodia’s higher education sector. These are goal-oriented sector and university development strategy, transformative institutional leadership, strategic human resource management, strategic financial management, and achieving Goal 4.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. A goal-oriented strategy is fundamental, with its implementation carefully monitored to ensure a focus on quality. Transformative institutional leadership is, therefore, necessary, as is the need for strategic human resource and financial management practices that support the strategy.

This chapter aims to illustrate how Indonesian higher education (HE) has struggled to compete in the globalised world, as evidenced by the country’s below-average performance in global university rankings and the Global Innovation Index, despite the significant support from the government to improve Indonesia’s capacity for knowledge production. To further examine this issue, related sustainable development goals in HE (e.g. SDG 4.3) are framed within the discussion of the interrelated concepts of leadership, autonomy, quality, research, and innovation. This chapter shows that the lack of understanding of these concepts by both the government and university leaders may have affected the HE sector’s ability to improve institutional capacity. A contextual background of the country’s HE sector is also discussed alongside governance issues in three periods, i.e. colonialisation, post-colonialisation (Old Order regime), and the post-New Order Regime.

Higher education institutions in Lao PDR are not generally performing well. Some sector goals achieved include an outcomes-based curriculum focus and gender equity. However, problems with quality are wide-ranging and complicated, with most institutions struggling to improve their quality in teaching and learning, research, community service, and quality assurance. Efforts to improve tend to be frustrated by inefficiency and unmanageability. At the heart of the problem is a lack of sufficient leadership capacity. The challenges are profound, and the need for solutions is pressing.

Higher education in Malaysia only began in 1949 with the establishment of the University of Malaya in Singapore. With independence in 1957, a new campus was established in Kuala Lumpur in 1962. Since then, Malaysian higher education has undergone several major changes. The first was the focus on affirmative action while opening up to private institutions, which heralded a new phase. Malaysia’s early 21^st century higher education sector can be characterised as having roughly equal numbers of students enrolled in about 120 public and 500 private institutions with the gender ratio biased significantly in favour of females. Public institutions employ more qualified academic staff, but private institutions emphasise teaching over research. The sector faces major challenges, some internal to the system while others related to the rest of the economy. Internal challenges relate to the primacy of affirmative action over merit as entry qualifications for enrolment as well as the paucity of science and technology graduates. Economy-wide challenges relate to female graduates’ low participation in the labour force, attrition through brain drain, and failure to achieve technological catch-up. These factors combined conspire to ensnare Malaysia in the ‘middle-income trap’ the escape from which requires fundamental reform.

The higher education (HE) sector in Myanmar is currently in a fragile, backward-looking state. Its fragility is due to the 2021 coup with its consequent civil disobedience movement, continued conflict between the military and people’s defence force, the junta’s spurious delivery of a post-Covid and post-coup education system, and the junta’s apparent abandoning of the previous civilian government’s progress with the National Education Strategic Plan. It is backward-looking because the current junta, like previous juntas in Myanmar, use education as a tool for military propaganda and to populate the education system with civil servants that are loyal, or at least supine, to the military. The task of this chapter is to provide an overview of HE in Myanmar and how its current condition aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 4.3. This task is contextualised by considering the role of universities in the history of socio-political uprisings in Myanmar. Universities as theatres of communicative action have been and continue to be spaces of public resistance. This resistance and its accompanying vertical tension continue to shape the physical constitution of universities and the delivery of HE in Myanmar.

Philippine higher education is fraught with challenges in access, relevance, and quality. Initiatives at addressing these issues have often been adopted as government-mandated regulations. Academic program offerings are likewise highly regulated. Private institutions make up most of the higher education providers but differentiation in regulatory policies for private and public institutions are often imbalanced and partial to the latter. Higher education institutions are also tasked to contribute to the goals of achieving social equality and ensuring employability, with the push for internationalization being linked to quality concerns. This chapter will discuss issues of access, quality, and internationalization in Philippine higher education.

This chapter explores the landscape of higher education in Singapore as the nation positions itself to emerge stronger after the pandemic. A focus on three major issues facing higher education − digital transformation, job readiness of graduates, and access to quality education, describes education-based initiatives for addressing these challenges in Singapore. Local autonomous universities are woven into the tapestry of sustainable growth and development within Singapore’s economy. Connections between the development of education-based initiatives are made to illustrate how these institutions of continuous learning are positioning for relevance considering current developments and to suggest some areas for enhancement for promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.

From its beginnings in the late 19^th century, higher education in Thailand has evolved from primarily preparing the nation’s wealthy elite men in the capital of Bangkok to enrolling over half of the men and women throughout the Kingdom. This chapter overviews this historical development and examines the contemporary issues of policy and governance, quality, and workforce preparation in Thai higher education. It also reflects Thailand’s efforts to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring equal access for all to affordable and high-quality higher education. It concludes by discussing these issues within the Southeast Asian context, particularly highlighting Thailand’s focus on internationalization and the role of the ASEAN University Network, headquartered in Thailand. While Thai higher education faces many challenges, such as declining enrollment due to demographic changes and an urban–rural divide in access, this chapter argues that continued efforts to promote equity and quality, relying partially on technological advances, will bring Thai higher education into a new era.

Since Timor-Leste achieved its independence in 2002, the higher education sector has grown from 1 public university to 18 accredited and 3 pending accreditation tertiary institutions. This chapter discusses several key issues, particularly concerning the young people who make up more than half the 1.2 million population. As each year passes, more students complete secondary school, and the majority of these young people want to continue their studies in a tertiary institute. Other issues confronting the higher education sector, including how the government of Timor-Leste responds to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, how to increase quality education in the tertiary sector and the capacity for further academic progression for faculty and staff are addressed in light of the lack of qualified and appropriate staffing in institutions. The needs of the labor market and the mismatch between these needs and the degrees that tertiary institutions offer, are briefly discussed. Finally, the difficulties faced by higher education institutions in meeting the requirements for accreditation in the drive for membership of ASEAN are reviewed.

Vietnam is firmly committed to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals articulated in the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Goal 4 concerns quality education, and target 4.3 refers to ensuring access by all men and women to quality and affordable technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university education. In 2017, the Prime Minister issued a directive that included five actions to be taken by Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training to achieve target 4.3 in the context of the higher education sector. This chapter provides an opportunity to review some challenges the Ministry faces in implementing the five actions specified.