The ASEAN Roadmap 2009-2016 emphasized a knowledge-based community or society. With these tenets, the respective government of southeast Asian countries must adopt policies that would address certain developmental concerns, as provided in ASEAN Education Declaration: (i) achieve universal access to primary education across ASEAN countries by 2015; (ii) improve the quality and adaptability of education; (iii) review scholarship program; (iv) use ICT to promote lifelong learning including e-learning; (v) promote education network at all levels; (vi) ASEAN University Network; (vii) ASEAN Youth Development Program; (viii) establish Science and Technology Research Center; and, (ix) ASEAN Development and Education Forum.

Amalgamation may be beneficial to well-established and big universities with strong curricular programs.  Obviously, their financial and technological dominance would translate to leadership in academic and research activities if compared or integrated with other smaller universities in the ASEAN.  It also imply that accreditation standards would serve best the known and stable schools.  Their academic programs would set as benchmarks, to the detriment of lesser recognized or accredited schools.

For an individual, integrating certain aspects of an educational system with that of other countries may prove to be a curse or a blessing.  If one has a good scholastic preparation, he/she will find it easy to take advantage of the various employment opportunities found in ASEAN countries.  But if an individual's educational background was mediocre and lacking in knowledge and skills, as the case of majority of graduates, then it would bred a lot of problems.

I think cooperation is more accurate than integration. And this will matter because talk of "integration" could lead to backlash, which would not help with cooperation among academics.

Prof:

In my region's experience with such integration, all the Aesean countries may not be at the same level of development, so allowances would have to be made where such integration is done on a phased basis. Here's what's available in ResearchGate;

https://www.researchgate.net/publicliterature.PublicLiterature.search.html?type=keyword&search-keyword=Common+accreditation+standards+for+various+disciplines+in+Asean+countries&search-abstract=&search-journal=&search=Search

Best regards,

Debra