Keynote Speakers

Keynote Speech: 
A Future-Ready Quality Assurance of Higher Education in the World of Artificial Intelligence and Disruptions

Abstract

Today’s higher education institutions around the world have been facing successive bouts of disruptions ranging from climate change, industrial revolution 4.0, COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently the rapid advancement and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the business world.

McKinsey research shows that up to 70 percent of business activities, across almost all occupations, between now and 2030 would be automated by generative AI. On the other hand, a recent study by Tyton Partners finds that about 50 percent of college students are using AI but only 22 percent of faculty members are using it.

These disruptions challenge the modus operandi of higher education institutions. How can higher education institutions brave themselves to ride above the waves of disruptions? What holds the key to the future of quality assurance amidst the waves of disruption and their impact on higher education institutions?

This presentation discusses the ecosystem of quality assurance and how higher education institutions can brave themselves to overcome, transform and ride above the waves of disruptions and be relevant to the larger ecosystem.


Biography

Johnson is the founder and principal consultant of Education Quality International (eqi). He is also an AUN-QA Expert, AUN-QA’s “Green Jacket” Assessor and was a founding member of the AUN-QA Council (February 2013 to March 2015) and Technical Team (since April 2015). He was instrumental in establishing the development, training and documentation of AUN-QA Framework and Guidelines at both programme and institutional levels. Johnson was appointed as a QA expert in the ASEAN-QA Project Phase I and II; and at the East African Quality Assurance Forum in 2012. He was a lead expert for the EU-SHARE pilot online OBE training course for ASEAN in 2022. He was appointed as the International Curriculum Development Specialist to the Luxembourg Development Project in Lao PDR from 2018 to 2023 and a lead consultant for the AUN-EQI community projects in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Johnson has been providing QA training, consulting, and assessment to many universities in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. He has trained thousands of QA practitioners, professionals, and assessors since 2008. He has been invited to deliver keynote speeches in national, regional, and international conferences.

Johnson has more than 40 years of operational, quality and human resource management experiences in manufacturing, telecommunications, postal services, logistics, training and education. Prior to establishing eqi, he was a full-time lecturer at Nanyang Polytechnic (Singapore) and an adjunct lecturer for Murdoch University and Edith Cowan University teaching diploma, bachelor’s, and master’s degree programmes in Singapore. Johnson’s last employment was with the Office of Quality Management at the National University of Singapore (NUS) focusing on leading and facilitating quality improvement in general and educational administration and service quality.

Johnson holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Leicester and a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Management Studies from the University of London.