Embassy Quality Assurance Workshop Helps Build Bridges between Australian and Indonesian Education Institutions

On Wednesday 29 July 2009, the Australian Embassy Jakarta hosted a workshop on quality assurance for higher education institutions organised by the Embassy’s Education section. Over 80 Indonesian education institution representatives participated in the workshop and panel discussion.

This workshop was conducted as a follow up to the signing in November 2008 of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Julia Gillard and the Indonesian Minister of Education, Bambang Sudibyo. In recent years the Education departments of both countries have developed closer relations and increased cooperation, particularly in the Higher Education sector.

In his opening remarks, the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Bill Farmer, said that the workshop “provided an opportunity for discussion and information exchange among education experts, colleagues and friends from Australia and Indonesia on quality assurance issues in their respective institutions.”

The first speaker, Mr Robert Carmichael, an Audit Director at the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), delivered a presentation on current methods used to audit Australian higher education institutions.
Mr. Carmichael highlighted the principles and approach to quality assurance implemented by higher education authorities in Australia.

AUQA is an independent, not-for-profit national agency that promotes, audits and reports on quality assurance in Australian higher education. It operates independently of governments and the higher education sector and is under the direction of a Board of Directors.

The second speaker, Prof Dr Johannes Gunawan, Secretary of the Education Council of the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education and Chairman of the National Team on Indonesian Quality Assurance Systems, delivered a presentation on system requirements for implementing quality assurance frameworks by higher education institutions in Indonesia.

Prof. Gunawan briefed participants on how Indonesian National Standards of Education (NSE) quality assurance should be internally driven and institutionalised within each organisation’s standard procedure but could also involve input from external parties.

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