The OECD’s Regional Policy Network on Education and Skills aims to foster knowledge exchange in support of national growth and regional integration. The Network encourages a whole-of-government approach to formulating and implementing sound skills policies. It draws on the growing participation by Southeast Asian countries in the OECD’s education surveys and local job creation policy reviews, which provide valuable comparative data and analysis that can help countries in the region build more efficient and effective employment and skills systems.

1. SEAMEO’s Priority Areas on Education for Southeast Asia
By Ms Piyapa Su‐angavatin
SEAMEO Secretariat
(Email: Piyapa@seameo.org)
In the last two decades, the global flagship agenda “Education for All” (EFA has taken a centre‐
stage along with the myriad array of SEAMEO Activities. With this agenda culminating this year,
SEAMEO inherits the progress made thus far in achieving current global goals in order to set
Southeast Asian agenda beyond 2015, especially in the context of regional integration and
challenges of post‐2015 developments.
SEAMEO, having harnessed vast experience in education in Southeast Asia for the past 50 years
recognises that its challenges beyond 2015 will be even more demanding, calling for greater
urgency to develop a new regional agenda that will drive SEAMEO to promote excellence in
education, science and culture.
As part of this initiative, a ministerial meeting of the SEAMEO Council was convened in Lao PDR
in September 2014 as part of SEAMEO’s flagship projects, the SEAMEO College. The outcome
from the meeting was the distillation of Seven Priority Areas of Southeast Asia on Education to
be promoted for the next twenty years (2015‐2035).

2. The transformation required in the region should be strategic, comprehensive, and systematic,
while being rooted in the values and traditions of the region. Thus, focused collaboration and
interactions in the next two decades will be in the following priority areas:
1. Early Childhood Care and Education
For the goal to be realized, strategic, systematic, comprehensive, flexible, integrated and
multi‐sectoral early chidhood care and development policies and programmes must be set
in place, supporting advocacy with parents and communities, along with government
entities, for the allocation of resources to expand and improve services, giving special
attention to disadvantaged groups who can benefit most from such programmes, including
children from poor familites, those living in remote areas and of marginalized ethnic and
linguistic comunities, and children with disabilities and special learning needs;
2. Addressing Barriers to Inclusion
Addressing barriers to inclusion and access to basic learning opportunities of all learners,
with particular attention to over‐aged children in primary schools, those belonging to
linguistic and ethnic minority groups, people with special learning needs, and other related
causes of exclusion. These barriers may be addressed through the development of
innovations in delivery and management in order to reach as many learners and support as
many communities as possible. In addressing the most vulnerable sectors, these
interventions can be enhanced by adopting and learning from the existing framework for
education of indigenous peoples that celebrate their diversity and help enrich their culture.
3. Resiliency in the Face of Emergencies
Resiliency in the face of emergencies (e.g., conflicts, extreme weather and natural
disasters), preparing schools leaders, teachers and students as well as local communities
in managing and maintaining the delivery of education services.
4. Promoting Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)
Promoting technical and vocational education and training among learners and their
parents, through more visible investments in the field, and improving relevance of the
curricula to focus on creativity and innovation. The population may be enhanced through
experience‐based policy, and demonstrated and visible employability of graduates with
multiple pathways for continuing training. TVET need not be regarded as a single,
stand‐alone mechanism but a pathway linked with higher education and lifelong learning.
TVET in the region can also be enhanced through the development of a regional policy
framework for labour, skill and learner mobility.
5. Revitalising Teacher Education
Teacher education to be given due recognition as a worthy tertiary programme ‐ making
teaching again a profession of first choice – through the comprehensive, strategic, and

3. practice‐based reform of the teacher management and development systems through more
professional preparation at pre‐service; adequate induction and in‐service processes; and
systematic performance assessment, review, and reward and accountability mechanisms.
Policies should consciously emphasize the requirement of having the best candidates for
teacher training following an explicit and shared teacher competency framework and a set
of standards applicable across the region.
6. Promoting Harmonisation in Higher Education and Research
Harmonization in higher education and research that recognizes the need for individual
countries to invest in strengthening higher education institutions, with harmonization
taking place through an institution‐to‐institution approach with coordination and
standard‐setting across institutions, with each one determining its most important needs,
rather than requiring them through Government to Government agreements. This, as with
TVET, can be enhanced through the development of a regional policy framework for labour,
skill and learner mobility.
7. Adopting a 21st
Century Curriculum
Adopting a 21st
century curriculum, involving radical reforms ‐ not incremental revisions ‐
through a systematic analysis of the knowledge, skills, and values that will be needed to
effectively respond to the changing global context, and more particularly, to the
ever‐increasing complexity of the Southeast Asian economic, socio‐cultural, and political
environment, for which SEAMEO and the Ministries of Education could serve as the
principal mechanism for promoting ASEAN integration in the learning community and in
developing teachers imbued with ASEAN ideals for building the ASEAN community.