EQI and the University of Mindanao (UM) hosted the 1st IQA Workshop, “Building a Future‑Ready, Sustainable Quality Assurance System in Higher Education,” on 20 - 22 October 2026 in Davao City, the Philippines.
This pioneering workshop is the first of its kind designed to guide higher education institutions in implementing the AUN‑QA Institutional Framework, Programme Framework, IQA Framework, and IQA Management Toolkit in a unified holistic manner.
The workshop focuses on turning vision into action, culture into behaviours, improvement into transformation, and compliance into agency—empowering HEIs to build systems that are future‑ready, resilient, innovative and genuinely quality‑driven.
The unified holistic approach to AUN-QA Framework and toolkit was unveiled at the workshop and the rationales for recommending the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a strategic management framework to unify and integrate the AUN-QA framework and toolkit are:
- It is a holistic integrative strategic management framework rather than a toolkit
- BSC is a customizable framework suitable for any organization and its context
- It connects the contextual factors in the ecosystem and their causes and effects
- It facilitates both vertical and horizontal alignment
- It enables cascading of strategy and objectives to align and achieve organizational aspirations and desired performance.
The 17th "Happy Employees Work Better" workshop was held on 24 - 25 September 2026. The workshop is a collaboration between ASK Training Pte Ltd and Living Better. The workshop was facilitated by Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin, Chief Happiness Coach of Living Better.
The workshop began with the evolution of the happiness economy, discussed extensively on the 8 dimensions of happiness DNA with a self-assessment instrument to measure the happiness level of each of the 8 dimensions, and the strategies and practices to raise and sustain the level of happiness for individuals and organizations.
The 21st "Happier Career Happier Life" workshop was held on 14 August 2026, a colloborative workshop organised with ASK Training Pte Ltd and Living Better and facilitated by Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin, Founder and Chief Happiness Coach. Various profiling tools were shared to aid career choices and techniques to manage stress were practised such as muscle relaxation, meditation, laughter yoga, stretching exercise and breathwork.
The 8th "Building Personal Resilience and Wellbeing" workshop was held on 13 August 2026.
The workshop was organised in collaboration with ASK Training Pte Ltd and Living Better and facilitated by Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin, Founder and Chief Happiness Coach. Various instruments are used to assess the levels of wellbeing, resilience, fixed/growth mindset and burnout and techniques to manage the 4 zones of energy (Performance, Survival, Burnout and Recovery) were shared. The workshop ended with a personal action plan for each participant to raise their resilience and wellbeing.
Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin, Founder and Principal Consultant, Education Quality International (eqi) was invited to speak at the 9th DLSMHSI International Conference on Health Sciences Pedagogy at De La Salle Medical and Health Sciences Institute on 28 July 2026,
He shared the topic on "Reimagining OBE in ASEAN Higher Education: Building Future-Ready Graduates in the Era of AI".
