Ancient Koreans first adopted Chinese characters (hanja, 漢字) for widespread use in the middle of the 4th century, with the establishment of educational institutions and the import of Chinese books as textbooks. The Korean way of pronouncing Chinese characters was called dongeum (東音), and differentiated from the Chinese way. In 1443, Koreans created their own characters (hangeul). Since then, hangeul, Korean-Chinese words and Chinese characters have been used in combination.The mother tongue (vernacular) of Koreans from the ancient to the present has been part of the Altaic family. This mother tongue can be called the indigenous language (native Korean), distinct from Korean-Chinese (dongeum) words. Needless to say, Korean culture and indigenous language predate Korean-Chinese words. Thus, it is a meaningful task to seek the origins of intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter intangible heritage) in indigenous language.

Cultural heritage documentation is a continuous process empowering monitoring, maintenance and understanding the cultural heritage object. It is required for conservation by providing proper and timely information, while it is both the outcome and action of meeting the information requirements of cultural heritage management. Cultural heritage documentation makes reachable a range of tangible and intangible resources, such as metric, descriptive, thematic and societal records of cultural heritage.\nSeveral International Convention and Charters, heritage documentation has a outstanding position in our obligation, as humanity, to protect, conserve and restore cultural heritage. The Athens Convention (1931), the Hague Agreement (1954), the Venice Charter (1964) and the Granada Agreement (1985) are just few examples in which the documentation need is also underlined, as an integral part of protection, study and conservation.\nBy nature, cultural heritage documentation and standards are tied. All the different phases of the ‘process’ enfold the sense of standards.

Singapore is a culturally diverse society and one of the most religiously diverse nations of the world, and the understanding of cultural practices aids in fostering dialogue and social cohesion in such a social context. This paper discusses the important role of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in fostering a deeper appreciation of the commonalities and differences among people, particularly in an era where societies around the world are facing complex effects of social diversity, movements of people and the effects of globalisation. It highlights the efforts to safeguard ICH in Singapore through partnerships between government agencies, educational institutions and the community.

This paper accompanies a shorter presentation to the ICHCAP Forum ‘Unlocking the Potential of Tertiary Education for ICH Safeguarding’, held in Seoul, Republic of Korea in July 2018. \n\nAlong with other speakers from the Asia-Pacific Region, I have been asked to outline and explain the educational approach to intangible cultural heritage safeguarding in the post-graduate teaching courses in the Cultural Heritage & Museum Studies program at Deakin University, located in the Australian State of Victoria. Deakin is a relatively young university within Australia, established in 1974, and named after Alfred Deakin, leader of the Australian federation movement and Australia’s second Prime Minister. \n\nDeakin University is located in the Australian State of Victoria and has four physical campuses as well as its ‘Cloud campus’ (for on-line delivery). The Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies program is located at the Melbourne campus, on the Country (Traditional Lands) of the Wurundjeri people, and provides both on-campus and Cloud (online) delivery of its courses. Deakin has a long-standing commitment to flexible and on-line learning. Deakin’s LIVE the Future Agenda 2020 has as its first Strategy for its ‘Learning’ objective: ‘Provide premium cloud and located learning’. The Cloud campus is the fastest growing of its campuses, with more than 13,000 students now studying predominantly on-line (Deakin University 2017: p. 5). All Deakin’s programs aim to allow students to take courses wherever they are, and to study ‘anytime’. In practice, this has allowed Deakin to be an inclusive tertiary education provider, supporting people to be able to undertake their studies, alongside work/caring responsibilities, or located in rural and regional locations (or even outside Australia).

Coming from a formerly colonized and currently developing country like the Philippines, advancing cultural heritage education becomes imperative. Cultural heritage education potentially stems the negative impact of globalization on culture. It can also dismantle the framework of neocolonialism in formerly colonized states whose educational systems were established by colonizers. While these promises of what cultural heritage education can do are easily identified, crafting a higher education degree program in cultural heritage, especially intangible cultural heritage, has many ramifications. This paper problematizes the challenges in the development and institution of a higher education degree program in intangible cultural heritage. Specifically this paper will attempt to raise and discuss issues that (may) surface in the development and institution a higher education degree program in intangible cultural heritage in the light of current higher education systems, practices and processes using primarily the context of the Philippines as a developing country. National higher education policies, program structure and content, pedagogy as well resources for teaching, and career prospects and employability are the areas which shall be problematized in this discussion. While the discussion is primarily on the context of the Philippines, the discussion can possibly have reverberations in developing countries.

"Tertiary education in the Philippines is an avenue for teaching and safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. An examination of the new General Education (GE) courses (the equivalent of liberal education in other countries) prescribed by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the governing or regulatory body for higher learning institutions in the Philippines both public and private, as well as that of the University of the Philippines System (UP), the country’s national university, show that topics and discussions on intangible cultural heritage may be integrated in them. While a program or area of study/concentration on ICH cannot as yet be developed or is still being developed for tertiary level education, there are already courses that are in place that can be vehicles of introducing and promoting ICH in the tertiary level education in the Philippines. Since these courses are required of all college students regardless of their programs or majors, the study of ICH becomes inevitable and even imperative; in the long run it will result in safeguarding ICH.

An eminent gathering of experts and the diversity of their knowledge based on first-hand efforts at safeguarding intangible heritage makes the task of a rapporteur daunting. Please allow me to share some reflections from a day of intense discussions. Rather than a summary of presentations, which are already provided by the organisers, I beg your attention to the following. The Director-General of UNESCO, Madame Irina Bokova, has consistently emphasised the critical role of a culture in peace and sustainable development. She says that it ‘is a source of identity and dignity for local communities, a wellspring of knowledge and strength to be shared’. The safeguarding of intangible heritage is critical to the viability and sustainability of this ‘source of identity and dignity’. Safeguarding is a process that informs intercultural, intergenerational, interagency, and interdisciplinary dialogue.

First, allow me to express my thanks and honour for being invited to make this keynote speech. This is the second time I have come to Korea at ICHCAP’s kind invitation. My contact with colleagues from this and other countries in the AsiaPacific Region has left me feeling more an ally than a mere sympathizer of their work. We live in an era of globalization, not only of the economy, information and communication, but also of solidarity towards building a better world for ourselves and for future generations. I hope this meeting will be a landmark in our joint efforts to make our contributions to the cultural communities with which we presently work and our role as advisors to the Intergovernmental Committee more effective, in terms of our joint mission of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Huge geographical distances and cultural differences separate our countries, a fact that is immediately evident in the linguistic diversity present in this room. Use of the English language facilitates our communication and, in addition, we can understand each other thanks to the efficient collaboration of the interpreters, even though we are so very much aware of how much subtlety is inevitably lost in translation. My thanks, therefore, to our backstage partners.

The primary value of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) lies in its ability to create locally based knowledge that performers, practitioners, and other participants use to contemplate, understand, and act upon their lives. Its scope is utilitarian as well as spiritual, ethical as well as aesthetic. Through ICH, local participants realise a wide range of benefits—ranging from practical techniques to affirmations of individual identity and group solidarity. National cultural institutions that programmatically recognise this value develop policy both to help safeguard local ICH and to promote cultural diversity, an ethical and political principle that recognises the creativity, beauty, wisdom, and legitimacy of the variety of human cultures. Cultural diversity at a national level can help safeguard local practices of ICH.

This paper explores how intangible cultural heritage is being adapted and accredited in an autonomous Higher Academic Institution. Kathmandu University Department of Music has been taken as a case study. \n\nThis Department offers Bachelors (B.Mus.), Masters (M.Mus.) and PhD in Ethnomusicology. As part of this study, information has been collected in order to understand the factors that were perceived as the main considerations for quality assurance of the programs in the department. These challenges were explored with accreditation framework following evidence based self-assessed perception methods of the faculties, staffs and the students. The parameters for accreditation were identified after study of documented information of the Department and in-depth interviews with the concerned stakeholders. The results show that there are obvious challenges that exist while accrediting the programs such as standardized reference books, appropriate location, adequate number of youths in the program, and providing support to attract foreign students and mobilizing students in national and international concerts, etc. It is noted that these challenges, however, have minor implications and can be solved at the time being addressing the problems with the structural adjustment and collaborative efforts with the community assuring quality of ICH related courses in ethnomusicology programs.