ASEAN Integration on

Education
Aims:
•Cooperation in the economic, social, cultural, technical, educational and other fields.
•Promotion of regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the
rule of law and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter.

ASEAN is the collective will of the nations of Southeast Asia to bind themselves together in
friendship and cooperation and, through joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their
peoples and for posterity the blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity.

ASEAN Member States

1. Brunei Darussalam
2. Cambodia
3. Indonesia
4. Lao PDR
5. Malaysia
6. Myanmar
7. The Philippines
8. Singapore
9. Thailand
10. Viet Nam

The Goal ASEAN Integration

 Build an ASEAN Community that is people-oriented and people-centred and
vibrant and socially responsible. Constructive engagement of academia,
parliamentarians, women, youth andcivil society groups. (25th ASEAN Summit,
Nov 2014, Nay PyiTaw, Myanmar)

 Make ASEAN an even more effective vehicle in the realisationof ASEAN

peoples’ aspirations for good governance, transparency, higher standards of
living, sustainable development focusing on climate change and the environment,
the further empowerment of women as well as greater opportunities for all in
ASEAN

ASEAN Post-2015 Vision on Education

1. The ASEAN education sector will continue to promote a Community that puts
people at its centre as well as one with an enhanced awareness of ASEAN.

2. It remains steadfast in its focus on sustainable development in the region.

3. It will give emphasis on access to quality inclusive education and development

of lifelong learning through robust capacity building programmes and provision of structural
guidelines.
ASEAN Priority Areas on Education
 Promoting inclusive schools through improved access and provision of basic education to
marginalized and OOSC (Out of School Children).
 Improving the quality of basic education through quality-focused interventions
 Advancing ASEAN Studies Programme and courses at higher education level through
online and cross-border mobility
 Developing stronger linkages between universities, industries, and communities
 Increasing the number of intra-ASEAN international students
 Maximizing access to TVET (TECHNICAL-VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING) for
employment and sustainable development
 Strengthening regional harmonisation for the advancement of quality TVET
transformation through networking, partnerships and mobilization of TVET personnel
and resources
 Establishing regional quality assurance and recognition for TVET and/or non-degree
(diploma or certificates only) institutions
 Establishing regional quality assurance and recognition for TVET and/or non-degree
(diploma or certificates only) institutions
 Reducing the gaps between vocational skills demand and supply across
 Promoting inclusive schools through improved access and provision of basic education to
marginalisedand OOSC
 Improving the quality of basic education through quality-focused interventions
 Promoting a culture of peace and understanding through education in contributing
towards peaceful and harmonious ASEA
 Strengthening collaboration between the education and other sectors related to ESD
  Promoting the inclusion for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in national curriculum
through support to relevant sectors' initiatives
 Developing harmonisedquality assurance mechanisms within the context of ASEAN
 Supporting institutional capacity in developing harmonisedquality assurance mechanisms
within the context of ASEAN
 Expanding and improving human and institutional capacity in educational software
development and online instructional design to enhance access to quality education
 Strengthening capacity to access and use digital learning through ICT in ASEAN
Member States; as well as provide other capacity building programmesto support this
 Promoting Education Exchange Week to conduct comprehensive, multi-level, and wide-
ranging exchanges and cooperation.
 Enhancing teachers' competencies for 21st century skills

Indigenous People (IP’s) Curriculum

‘Millions of people are still denied their right to education’, and indigenous peoples are among
the most affected and disadvantaged. Their situation has often been characterized by a lack of
access to an education that respects their diverse cultures and languages. Educational materials
providing accurate and fair information on indigenous peoples and their ways of life have been
all too rare, and, moreover, history textbooks have frequently depicted them in negative terms.
Similarly, in many cases educational programmes have failed to offer indigenous peoples the
possibility of participating in decision-making, the design of curricula, the selection of teachers
and teaching methods, and the definition of standards.

The Programme of activities for the United Nations International Decade of the World’s
Indigenous People states:
 A major objective of the Decade is education of indigenous and nonindigenous
societies concerning the situation, cultures, languages, rights and aspirations of
indigenous people.

 An objective of the Decade is the promotion and protection of the rights of

indigenous people, and their empowerment to make choices that enable them
to retain their cultural identity while participating in political, economic and
social life, with full respect for their cultural values, languages, traditions and
forms of social organization.

Indigenous education however faces a double challenge:

• to support and promote the maintenance, use and survival of indigenous peoples’ cultures, languages,
knowledge, traditions and identity,
• to provide and develop the knowledge and skills that enable indigenous peoples to participate fully
and equally in the national and international community.

GLOBALIZATION OF EDUCATION

Globalization

 It is often synonymous
with internationalization, referring to the
growing interconnectedness and
 interdependence of people and institutions
throughout the world. Although these terms
have elements in common, they have taken on
technical meanings that distinguish them
from each other and from common usage.
Internationalization is the less theorized
term.

 Globalization, by contrast, has come to

denote the complexities of
interconnectedness, and scholars have
produced a large body of literature to explain
what appear to be ineluctable worldwide
influences on local settings and responses to
those influences.

 Influences of a global scale touch aspects of

everyday life. For example, structural
adjustment policies and international trading
charters, such as the North American Free
Trade Association (NAFTA) and the Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), reduce
barriers to commerce, ostensibly promote
jobs, and reduce the price of goods to
consumers across nations. Yet they also shift
support from "old" industries to newer ones,
creating dislocations and forcing some
workers out of jobs, and have provoked large
and even violent demonstrations in several
countries.

Teacher Education and Globalization

In any educational system, the teacher performs a significant function of perpetuating society’s heritage
and energizing human resources towards social progress. The level of a nation’s education can not rise
far above the quality of the teacher of that nation. This therefore, makes the preparation and selection
of teachers a significant social concern. There is a need to review and transform both the professional
preparation of teachers and their in-service training. There is little doubt that likes all developing
countries, educational particularly in its quest to achieve education for all by 2020.

Undoubtedly, teachers lie at the heart of this educational crisis because only the teachers who posses
the necessary technical competence and professional skills through a well coordinated teachers
education program that can rise to meet the challenges of the crisis. The Education commission
recommended the introduction of “a sound program of professional education of teachers”.

It further remarked that investment in teacher education can yield very rich dividends because the
financial resources required are small when measured against the resulting improvements in the
education of millions.

As a teacher tries to teach in the way in which he himself was taught by his favorite teachers, this tends
to perpetuate the traditional methods of teaching. Such an attitude becomes an obstacle in progress in a
situation like the present when new and dynamic methods of instruction are needed. This situation can
be modified only by effective professional education which will initiate the teacher to the needed
revolution in teaching and lay the foundations for his future professional growth.

Classroom management is not an end in itself but indicative of teachers’ authority, inner strength,
interpersonal relations and leadership role. A learning environment that seeks student cooperation and
minimizes disciplinary problems would be achieved by teachers who have expertise in content and
instructional strategies, who make wise decisions about time and space, who demonstrate an attitude of
valuing and caring their students. Preventive classroom management can be effected by planning rules
and procedures beforehand as well as developing accountability in students for their academic work and
classroom behavior. Effective managers have intervention skills for dealing quickly with disruptive in
direct and fair ways. The development of personality traits and cultivation of skills required for effective
management is be achieved through theory, practice and effective monitoring.

Educational Policies and Globalization

It is important to note here that a preponderant majority of candidates fail external examinations yearly.
It is either something is wrong with the curriculum or the assessment procedures in both internal and
external examinations. The proportion of candidates who sit for the Examination and qualify for
admission into tertiary institutions is very low. This poor performance could either be as a reason of
curriculum overload or unrealistic poor assessment procedures. The adoption of curricula innovations in
education must necessarily involve corresponding innovations and changes in educational practices and
policies.
Despite huge investment on education as reflected in the budget allocations of many countries, there
seems to be widespread un-satisfaction with educational systems among major stakeholders. Perhaps
efforts to reform and reposition education to meet the challenges of globalization era have not been
yielding the requisite results, largely because enough attention has not been given to the roles and
instrumentality of educational assessment in initiating and sustaining educational reforms. Perhaps most
examination bodies should realize that their societies may not be getting value for the money spent on
yearly increases in the quality of formalized testing.

One should perhaps begin to ask some fundamental questions about the relevance of education
programs and the appropriateness of existing traditional assessment methods. It must be acknowledged
that traditional methods of pencil and paper seem to have failed in most societies to assess significant
learning outcomes. Apart from this failure, adherence to traditional assessment strategies by
examination bodies in contemporary era may thereby continue to undermine educational reform and
the bid to reposition schools to meet existential challenges of globalized societies. Perhaps, it should be
stated clearly that traditional standard test routed in the purely thematic curriculum is no longer
adequate in assessing higher order thinking. The momentum of widespread educational reform is a
challenge that educators cannot ignore to too long. Examination bodies world over should perhaps
exhibit more concrete awareness of this momentum for change. A positive step in this direction perhaps
is the need to explore the use of innovative assessment procedures.

The primary goals of authentic assessment which appear with the educational needs of contemporary
globalized era are:

1. To develop the learner’s cognitive strategies for self-monitoring of progress.

2. To foster the learner’s ability for higher-order thinking skills.

3. To measure the progress against learner’s own development, not the norm

4. To provide more accurate evidence of a learner’s abilities than traditional tests

 The emphasis of education in globalized societies is to create a culture that is learning friendly.
Most societies must set up cooperative learning environment wherein all resources in the
community are made learning-friendly. Corresponding innovations in educational assessment
should also be learners-friendly and performance focused.