SEAMEO COUNCIL PRESIDENCY EXTENDED TO TWO YEARS

The SEAMEO Council (SEAMEC) has approved the one-year extension of the term of the SEAMEC presidency starting 2011. Consequently, the SEAMEC Conference will be held every two years and the ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting on each intervening year. These developments came during the 46th SEAMEC Conference held from 26 to 29 January 2011 in Brunei Darussalam.

During the Conference, Philippine Education Secretary Br. Armin A. Luistro, FSC relinquished his post as SEAMEC president to Brunei Darussalam’s Minister of Education, Mr. Pehin Abu Bakar Apong. As the first SEAMEC president to serve for two years, the Brunei Minister committed to the continued modernization of education in Southeast Asia. The members of the SEAMEO Council agreed on the term extension during a free-flowing conversation on the future directions of SEAMEO. The less structured and more relaxed discussion, referred to as the Ministerial Round Table Meeting, was initiated by Brunei Darussalam and will now be a regular feature of the Conference. On other developments, the Education Ministers comprising the Council approved SEAMEO’s ten-year strategic plan covering the period 2011 to 2020. They also approved the proposal to establish the Regional Center for Lifelong Learning in Vietnam, and passed the resolution to speed up progress in providing quality EFA in the region. For more details on the events during the 46th SEAMEC Conference, kindly log on to the official website of the SEAMEO (http://www.seameo.org).