Associate Professor Dr Nafis Alam of Henley Business School Malaysia at the University of Reading Malaysia was recently invited as a panellist at the 2018 ASEAN Quality Assurance Network (AQAN) seminar and roundtable meeting jointly hosted by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) and the Finance Accreditation Agency (FAA) held on 27-28 September in Penang.

The 2018 AQAN seminar which was focussed on “Industry 4.0 in Higher Education” deliberated upon current developments in Industry 4.0 and its role in transforming the provision of Higher education programme and Quality Assurance (QA) in producing graduates for tomorrow. The audience for the 2018 AQAN seminar comprised of leaders in higher education QA, policy makers of QA and those associated with QA in the ASEAN countries. The event was officiated by Prof Dato Dr Rahmah Mohamed, CEO of MQA and Prof T. Basaruddin, President of AQAN.

Dr Alam spoke about the role of higher education institutions in producing graduates suitable for the Industry 4.0. In his speech Dr Alam also emphasised on the readiness of the higher education in designing the curriculum as per the need and demand of digitally transformed industries. In the discussion Dr Alam was joined by fellow panellists from MQA; UKM, APU and education technology expert from Thailand.

The 2018 AQAN seminar which was attended by over 300 participants from both public and private Universities within Malaysia and ASEAN discussed on the scope of Industry 4.0 in Higher education and how the new technologies will reshape the future of employment and whether there will be disruption in the higher education? The forum also debated upon can quality assurance agencies will leverage on changes brought upon by Industry 4.0 and what are the changes required by the quality assurance structure to promote employability and mobility of graduates?