USM PENANG, 20 October 2023 – MICROCASA, or MICRO-credentials for life-long learning and employability: Building Capacities for developing Agile educational interventions in Southeast Asian Universities, is the first ERASMUS international project aimed at sharing the European experiences and building institutional capacities in Southeast Asia to co-create, promote and deliver short competence-oriented educational units leading to micro-credentials, with the goal of solving economic and social problems.

On the European side, the project consortium includes 3 European universities with complementary competences: University of Saarland, Germany (USAAR); Universitat Carlos III in Madrid, Spain (UC3M); the European University of Rome, Italy (EUR); as well as the Italian NARIC Agency (CIMEA) and the quality assurance expert company, Giraf PM.

The representative group of six Southeast Asian Universities are from Malaysia (USM and UNIMAS), Indonesia (Universitas Brawijaya and Universitas Sam Ratulangi (UNSRAT), as well as Philippines (Ateneo de Manila and University of Philippines System).

As part of the Micro-Credentials Capacity Building Programme, this one-day International Workshop on Micro-credentials held on 5 October 2023, aims to empower staff from partner universities in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in designing, developing, delivering, and evaluating micro-credential programmes.

An encouraging turnout of 40 participants from public and private higher education entities in Malaysia, as well as those esteemed institutions from partner universities in Indonesia and the Philippines attended the workshop physically, along with 25 partners of MICROCASA, and 48 online participants, which underscores the tremendous interest and unwavering commitment from each participant to collectively reshape the landscape of education in Southeast Asia.

Other than addressing different aspects of micro-credentialing capacities from course content co-creation, educational technology, pedagogical and didactic methods for short educational units leading to micro-credentials and transparent quality assurance, this workshop with its theme “Bringing together Global Educators towards Innovative Digital Education” also provided the participants the opportunity to network with partners from Europe and Southeast Asia. 

Source Text & Photo: School of Distance Education (PPPJJ) USM