Mechanism for ASEAN Credit Transfer System (ACTS) was proposed for the first time at AUN Quality Assurance Meeting on December 2008 at Universitas Indonesia. In the meeting, AUN Member Universities agreed to hold an annual meeting, focuses on discussion about ACTS. De La Salle University from Philippines was appointed to be the host of the meeting.
The first meeting of ACTS, held by De La Salle University on March 2009, was attended by representatives of each AUN Member Universities who are involved in credit transfer and/or student mobility matters in their home universities. These representatives were then appointed as members of the ACTS Steering Committee. In this meeting, the steering committee discussed about how ACTS could be implemented in student mobility among AUN member universities and how to adjust the implementation of ACTS with the existing university and/or national credit transfer system. In addition to that, the steering committee also agreed to appoint Universitas Indonesia to host the secretariat of ACTS. The secretariat will be responsible for developing online system for ACTS and monitoring student mobility under ACTS scheme.
ACTS online application system was introduced for the first time during the 2nd ACTS Steering Committee Meeting in Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City on January 2010. The online system was developed to accommodate students, home and host universities of AUN member universities to conduct selection process for mobility program in the region. To increase number of participation, AUN member universities have committed to provide five full scholarships for their students to do exchange at other AUN member universities for one semester.
In March 2011, Universitas Indonesia was appointed to host the 3rd ACTS Steering Committee Meeting back to back with the workshop on ACTS courses database. In the workshop, representatives from each AUN member university are requested to compile their universities’ courses that are offered to exchange students. The list of courses, then, should be inputted to online database developed by ACTS secretariat. The online application system and the courses database were implemented for ACTS mobility in July 2011.
The 4th ACTS Steering Committee Meeting was held by Universiti Brunei Darussalam on April 2012. It was the first evaluation meeting on the first year of ACTS implementation. The system has recorded to receive more that 200 applications just for the 1st year.
In the future, ACTS scheme will not only be used among AUN member universities. The idea of ACTS enlargement was raised during the 5th ACTS Steering Committee Meeting in Universiti Sains Malaysia. In the meeting, the committee discussed on how ACTS could be used for student mobility among AUN member universities and Japanese partner universities under “Re-Inventing Japan Project”.
