Problems of tertiary education and regional academic journals: A view from Southeast Asia

While this article accepts the idea of regional Journal cooperation within the context of establishing an ASEAN Integrated Journal Publishing Network as a positive and pertinent step, it explores three major hurdles that regional universities need to contend with. These include firstly, the dominance of English as the major academic language which puts vernacular languages and communication at a distinct disadvantage and resurrects a neo‐colonial academic mindset; secondly, tertiary education is generally weak in the region and in most cases universities are focused on teaching and service to government rather than academic research. Thirdly, universities in Southeast Asia, both in terms of academic salaries and the research infrastructure (libraries, laboratories) is financially handicapped and poorly supported. Regional academic journals cater to their 'home' informed audiences and respond less to international standards which makes universal or regional benchmarking difficult.