Asia Forum towards Educational Excellence for All

An assembly of education experts and field professionals united to discuss, tackle and aim for educational excellence in Asia and the Pacific.

The Asia Education Leaders Forum (AELF) was held in Bangkok from 26-28 October at the Queen Sirikit National Conference Center. Its theme was ‘Towards Educational Excellence for All’, a goal which depends on the ability to reach the unreached and ensure that everyone in the Asia Pacific region is receiving a quality education as addressed by keynote speaker and UNESCO Bangkok’s Chief of Education Policy and Reform Unit, Gwang-Chol Chang.

The AELF serves to strengthen a community of academics, teachers, practitioners and esteemed experts from within the field of education: a community concerned with and dedicated to improving the state of education in the region.

Statistical figures highlighting problems, potential solutions and achievements were mentioned throughout the event. The evident concern on the need for challenges and issues regarding quality education to be tackled all over Asia and the Pacific’s more than 4.2 billion people, which currently accounts for 61% of the world’s population.

A mentioning of the significant progress been made in reaching the internationally agreed Education for All goals; where 9 of every 10 children of primary school age in Asia and the Pacific attended school in 2008. There is 2009’s number of internet users in the region, which was more than 5 times higher than 2000. The exemplary and modern model that is Singapore; known as a “wired island” due to 83% of its population being broadband internet subscribers.

While in contrast, Myanmar has the third-lowest digital opportunity in the world at 0.04% (ESCAP, 2011). Asia and the Pacific the largest number of illiterate adults of any region in the world with 518 million of the world’s 793 million illiterate adult population. These figures were presented during the keynote speech to help explain the overall diversity found in the Asian region.

President-elect of the World Educational Research Association, Professor Dr. Cheng Yin Cheong raised and discussed an important question, “How can teachers face up to the changes in the next decades?”, which was approached by a thorough presentation noting that changes and reforms have become inevitable and necessary in education due to the increasing challenges of globalization, technology advancement, international competition, and local development.

His keynote speech at the AELF illustrated the major international trends of changes at different levels of education since the last two decades and highlighted what kinds of obstacles and challenges teachers are facing in ongoing changes. He also elaborated on how teachers can face up to the changes through overcoming the technical, economic, cultural and political obstacles to help implement systematic changes.

Dr. Cheng had previously joined the UNESCO Bangkok office for a brief information sharing session with questions and feedback to the challenges faced throughout education reform and policies in the Asia Pacific region. A point particularly shared by everyone towards solving such issues included the idea that a student’s capacity to adapt to changing environments and situation, along with the teacher’s ability to mentally stimulate and challenge a student’s way of thinking is one vital method that leads to building quality at a micro level, once implemented.

“I hope we can continue to work together, contribute and share our knowledge”- concluding words to UNESCO staff by Dr. Cheng.

By Jeffry Peguero