ACC Secretary-General Exchanged Views with Director of SEAMEO and Senior ASEAN Educational Officials

On 25 April 2106, Secretary-General H.E. Mme. Yang Xiuping of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) exchanged views with Dr. Gatot Hari Priowirjanto, Director of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), Mr. Didik Suhardi, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia, Senior ASEAN Educational Officials, and heads of Regional Centres and Associate Member Organizations of SEAMEO, during the time when she attended the 6th Annual Forum for High Officials of Basic Education of SEAMEO.

Secretary-General Yang Xiuping said education was a common concern of ASEAN countries and China and a great cause that benefited eleven countries and two billion people. People should be guaranteed to receive good education from childhood and basic education played a significant role in this connection. Both China and ASEAN paid great attention to education: China gave top priority to education in its 13th Five Year Plan and ASEAN had made remarkable achievements in education in its Community building. This brought huge potential and broad vista to ASEAN-China educational cooperation. 

Secretary-General Yang thanked SEAMEO and the educational organizations of ASEAN for their support to ACC and briefed on ACC’s work. ACC had been making unremitting efforts to realize the "Double 100,000 Student Mobility Goal". In 2016, which marked the Year of ASEAN-China Educational Exchange, ACC organized an array of activities, such as ASEAN Students New Year’s Gala, the Beijing ASEAN Students’ Games 2016 and the ASEAN-China Youth Summer Camp, to set up platforms for the exchange and communication among the youth. ACC welcomed suggestions from SEAMEO and ASEAN countries to its work and their participation in its activities. ACC was ready to strengthen liaison with all parties and make concerted efforts to promote wide-ranging cooperation in basic education, vocational education, exchange of teachers and students, and educational research with a view to cultivating high-quality talents for the social-economic development of both sides and deepening ASEAN-China relations.

Dr. Gatot and Secretary-General Didik Suhardi joined other senior officials in speaking highly of ACC’s endeavour to promote ASEAN-China educational cooperation. They particularly appreciated the fruitful cooperation between ACC and relevant parties in vocational education, exchange of students and language training. They noted that education formed an important part in ASEAN Community building and ASEAN was currently designing the “21st Century Curriculum”, aiming to train versatile and creative students who were skilled new media to meet the demand of rapid development of the social-economic development of ASEAN. They were all willing to maintain close communication with ACC to explore new potentials in and give more highlights to educational cooperation so as to inject new energy to the sustainable development of ASEAN-China relations.