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AKARTA: Universitas Terbuka (UT), Indonesia’s open university, will collaborate with four other open universities to offer a master’s degree in ASEAN studies.

The collaboration is part of a plan to establish the One ASEAN community by 2015. The other open universities are in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

UT rector Tian Belawati said that the universities had the idea to start the program after seeing that many programs studying ASEAN were offered by universities outside ASEAN.

“We think that the universities that teach about ASEAN should be the universities in the region. The program will be devised with an ASEAN perspective, by ASEAN people, for people who have an interest about ASEAN,” she told The Jakarta Post.

“The program targets people who want to learn more about ASEAN, such as diplomats and businessmen,” she said.

She said that students would be offered a chance to learn an ASEAN member nation language. The universities might require students to stay in the country they study to learn its language and to experience its culture.

UT currently has more than 600,000 students, 80 percent of whom are teachers studying for university degrees as a compulsory requirement for teacher certification. The university also counts around 1,000 overseas migrant workers as its students.