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".
The 530th AUN-QA Programme Assessment at University of the Immaculate Conception (UIC) was held from 21 - 23 July 2026 in Davao City, the Philippines. Four study programmes were assessed and Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin, led the programme assessment for Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering with Asst. Prof. Siriluk Ruangrungrote from Thailand.
The 10th AUN-EQI workshop on "OBE Ecosystem Approach to Future-Ready Education" was held on 7 - 10 July in Bangkok, Thailand. The workshop was a collaborative capacity building initiative between ASEAN Quality Network (AUN) and Education Quality International (eqi) and was attended by participants from universities in the Philippines and Thailand.
The OBE Ecosystem Framework (Version 6) which was recently updated to embrace emerging and future trends in higher education such as world's future of work, future-ready curriculum, student agency, skills-first, authethic assessment etc. The following fundamental principles of OBE ecosystem framework were extensively discussed:
The 16th "Happy Employees Work Better" workshop was held on 2 - 3 July. 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 1st Cohort of PSQ-EQI Workshop on SAR Writing for Successful AUN-QA Programme Assessment was jointly hosted by the Philippines Society for Quality (PSQ) and Education Quality International (eqi) at The Manila Hotel from 12 to 14 May 2026 with an online session on 4 June 2026.
The workshop was successfully concluded with participation of 56 participants from more than 20 HEIs in the Philippines.
The two-day training workshop on ELOs System and Principles for Universities in Myanmar was held on 27 and 28 April 2026 (online) by Education Quality International (eqi) which is a strategic partner in the AUN-EQI community project.
The workshop focused on ELOs system and principles covering key terminology, learning taxonomy, formulation and measurement of ELOs, design of student assessment, constructive alignment and the use of AI as an aid to validate ELOs and the design of marking scheme.
The workshop was attended by more than 40 participants from the 6 participatig universities in Myanmar.
The 20th blended workshop on "Self-Assessment Report (SAR) Writing for Successful AUN-QA Programme Assessment" was held from 31 March - 2 April (onsite) and 17 April 2026 (online). The onsite workshop was hosted by the AUN-QA Network and Education Quality International in Bangkok, Thailand and attended by participants from universities in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
The 7th "Building Personal Resilience and Wellbeing" workshop was held on 27 March 2026 at Holiday Inn Atrium, Singapore.
The outline of the workshop is as follows:
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.
The workshop on Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) and Course Syllabus Development for Champasak University was held on 9 – 11 March 2026 in Pakse, Lao PDR. The opening of the workshop was graced by Mr. Saly Detmoongkhun, Vice President of Champasak University, after the opening remarks by the Dean of Faculty of Law and Administration, Champasak University, and Dr. Reginald Pastrana, Senior Sectoral Advisor, Lux Development Programme LAO/037.
It aims to equip participants with the competencies to design future-ready curriculum and to develop course syllabi. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Nguyen Thi My Ngoc and Mr. Johnson Ong of Education Quality International (eqi) and attended by about 40 faculty members from Champasak University.
The workshop on Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) and Internationalization of Study Programmes for the NUoL, Post-Graduate Office was held on 9 – 11 February 2026 in Vientiane, Lao PDR. The workshop was graced by Assoc Prof. Dr. Ounla Sivanpheng, Vice President of National University of Laos, Dr. Somdeth Keovongsak, Dean of Faculty of Law and Political Science, National University of Laos, and Mr. Thomas Lammar, Charge d Affaires of the Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
The 3-day workshop aims to advance outcomes-based education (OBE) and internationalization of study programmes at the Post Graduate Studies Office, National University of Laos in a holistic and unified way to raise the quality of higher education. It aims to equip participants with the OBE and internationalization framework to design study programmes.
The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Nguyen Thi My Ngoc and Mr. Johnson Ong of Education Quality International (eqi) and attended by more than 40 faculty members from NUoL.
The 20th "Happier Career Happier Life" workshop was held on 19 December 2025 at Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore. The outline of the workshop is as follows:
The 6th "Building Personal Resilience and Wellbeing" workshop was held on 18 December 2025 at Holiday Inn Atrium, Singapore. The outline of the workshop is as follows:
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.
The skills-first economy is an emerging paradigm where economic growth and workforce strategies anchored on skills mastery over formal qualifications. It has reshaped recruitment practices to hire on what individuals can do rather than what degrees they hold. This approach is expected to expand talent pools, improving equity, and aligning workforce development with fast-changing industry needs, technological advances and demographic shifts. Since 2019, there has been a growing trends towards skills-based hiring and several major companies like IBM, Google, Cisco, Walmart and Boeing have implemented a skills-first approach in their hiring and talent management strategies.
The shift towards skills-first led to the establishment of a Skills-First Readiness and Adoption Index which is jointly developed by OECD and the Centre for Skills-First Practices (CSFP) at the Singapore University of Social Sciences-Institute for Adult Learning (SUSS-IAL).
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| Source: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/dashboards/skills-first-readiness-and-adoption-index.html |
The rise of a skills-first economy has profound implications for higher education, especially in curriculum design, credentialing, assessment and graduate employability. HEIs must shift from emphasizing knowledge to future-ready skills, co-create skills-based curriculum with stakeholders, integrating microcredentials, badges, skill certification and authentic performance or skills-based assessment as employers seek out graduates who demonstrate job-ready skills rather than academic knowledge.
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