ASEAN Youth Meet Japan Prime Minister

(03/04/2013)

Prime Minister of Japan, H.E. Shinzo Abe received about 80 university students from ASEAN as the first batch of JENESYS 2.0 (Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths) programme, this week in Japan.

Representing the ASEAN youth, Ms. Leanne Marie Torrato captured aptly the spirit of the programme by stating, “Through this program, we hope to learn new and innovative economic policy ideas through exploring the fields of social sciences, culture and arts, and science and technology. We hope that we can find new ways to improve trade and diplomatic relations between our countries. Some people may say that these expectations are a bit ambitious. But the ASEAN youth now are more empowered than ever. And when we become our country’s leaders someday, we will see that these things we learn in JENESYS will be carried out for the benefit of the entire ASEAN community.”

The participants are divided into three groups to visit Chubu, Kansai, and Kyushu areas to observe Japan’s cutting-edge high technologies and its support for local industries as well as creative industries, experience Japan’s traditional culture, and communicate with the local Japanese people.

JENESYS is a key platform for youth exchange between ASEAN and Japan. The original programme was successfully conducted in 2007 – 2012, bringing more than 13,500 ASEAN youth to Japan. JENESYS 2.0, launched this year when PM Abe visited Jakarta in January 2013, will invite 10,000 ASEAN youth to visit Japan.

New ASEAN Financial Integration Report

(03/04/2013)

The Central Bank Governors from ASEAN Member States (AMS) launched the Summary Report entitled “The Road to ASEAN Financial Integration - A Combined Study on Assessing the Financial Landscape and Formulating Milestones for Monetary and Financial Integration in ASEAN” at the sidelines of the 9th ASEAN Central Bank Governors’ Meeting yesterday in Brunei Darussalam.

The Summary Report highlights ASEAN’s financial integration framework in the areas of financial services, capital account, payments and settlement systems, and capital markets. These efforts will be complemented by capacity-building initiatives, infrastructure building, and an enabling intermediation environment that is effective and efficient for financial flows, while ensuring that appropriate safeguards are in place to preserve financial stability. Taking into account the diversity of financial market development, economic structure and priorities in establishing the necessary preconditions among AMS, the Report emphasises that the implementation process of the key milestones needs to be managed effectively.  In this regard, individual AMS will be accorded flexibility to determine the timelines and preconditions corresponding to the state of preparedness of their economies.

The Summary Report is a joint initiative of the ASEAN central banks and monetary authorities, the ASEAN Secretariat and the Asian Development Bank.  The Central Bank Governors view this Report as an important reference for ASEAN to further guide its financial integration process.

The Summary Report is available for viewing here.

Sixth Press Release of the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC)

(03/04/2013)

The ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) successfully concluded its Sixth Meeting which was convened from 1-2 April 2013 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Meeting was updated on 15 projects under the ACWC Work Plan 2012-2016 while 3 new projects were tabled for adoption. Projects that are on-going this year include the compilation of country of best practices in eliminating violence against women and children which will be published in mid-2013. Public campaign, which was inaugurated last year, will be undertaken in conjunction with the International Day to Stop Violence against Women on 25 November 2013. Acknowledging common issues concerning women and girls in the CEDAW and CRC Concluding Observations, the ACWC planned for a regional workshop to look into those common issues towards effective promotion and protection of the rights of women and children in June 2013 in Da Nang, Viet Nam. As part of children’s rights promotion, development of guidelines for non violent approach to child rearing and child caring in various settings has started with annotated bibliographies being compiled.

Acknowledging that prevention and elimination of violence against women and children is its core, the ACWC drafted the ASEAN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Children. After several reviews since 2011, the final draft of the Declaration was accepted at this Meeting and was aimed to be adopted by the ASEAN Leaders this year. The Declaration aims to reflect ASEAN’s collective efforts to, among others, strengthen legal and policy frameworks and institutional capacity to combat violence against women and children, and assist victims through protection, services, rehabilitation, recovery and reintegration of victims.

Recognising the importance of collaboration for efficiency and better impact of projects in its Work Plan, the ACWC identified potential common areas and projects in the work plans of other ASEAN sectoral bodies. The ACWC will explore collaboration with those ASEAN sectoral bodies. The ACWC will also engage civil society in the implementation of its projects by tapping on their expertise. For this purpose, the Meeting discussed workable mechanisms of civil society engagement in the implementation of the ACWC Work Plan.

On 3 April 2013, the ACWC Representatives prepared the ground work towards the establishment of a network of social service providers helping women and children victims of violence. It was considered that the network would spearhead, among others, trainings, exchange programmes and scholarships for social service agencies, awards to recognise outstanding social workers in the region, case studies of successful rehabilitation and reintegration of victims.

The Seventh ACWC Meeting was scheduled for later part of 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

OHEC Sec. Gen. Visits Thepsatri Rajabhat University

(04/04/2013)

The Secretary General of the Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC) Mr. Apichart Jeerawuth chaired a ceremony to open a new signboard for Thepsatri Rajabhat University in Nakhon Sawan on 30 March 2013. He made a donation to establish the Funding of Thepsatri Taklee and gave awards to people who had made contributions to the university.

Mr. Apichart then talked about the policy of developing universities to become academic institutions for local communities. He said that universities in local areas should give more opportunities for education and should serve the needs of local people, communities and organizations. They should take three major issues into account: teachers, educational materials and service to students.

OEC to Design Ethics and Morality Curricula for Thai Children

(04/04/2013)

The Office of the Education Council (OEC), with cooperation of the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), recently organized a seminar on designing curricula for teaching ethics and morality to suppress corruption in Thai children and mobilizing anti-corruption strategies through the use of an educational mechanism. This seminar was chaired by the Chairperson of NACC, Mr. Panthep Klanarongran.

According to Mr. Panthep, education plays a key role against corruption, so curricula reform should be done carefully with brainstorming by qualified academics and learning from the work done in foreign countries. The campaign entitled, "Growing-Up without Cheating", is a successful project on anti-corruption which needs to be used in conjunction with the traditional Thai culture of respecting adults and expressing gratitude to them as well as life-long education. The NACC is emphasizing the training of ethics and morality via various media and the results from the seminar will be used to improve the characters of Thai children and youths in the future.

The Secretary General of OEC, Dr. Sasithara Pichaichannarong, said that the OEC and the NACC realized the importance of cooperation on anti-corruption education and had formulated an agreement on the issue. Initially, the sub-committee for mobilizing anti-corruption campaigns will promote education as a mechanism to suppress corruption. This seminar was one of the national gatherings which enabled ideas from concerned agencies on developing a curriculum about ethics and morality to protect children against corruption.

The qualified academic of NACC, Dr. U-this Khaothien, said that a corruption survey in 2011 indicated that Thailand was ranked 80th out of 183 countries worldwide and 11th in Asia. Therefore, the NACC had formulated four strategies for the prevention and suppression of corruption from 2008 to 2012. The first strategy concerned raising anti-corruption awareness in people of all sectors. The second one was to unite people power to suppress corruption. The third was to strengthen organizations that work on anti-corruption. The fourth strategy was to create anti-corruption professionals. It is a good occasion that the Ministry of Education and NACC made the agreement for using education as the key solution to corruption problem because nowadays Thai society views corruption as the norm.

Source: Ban Muang Newspaper

2018 for ASEAN Qualification Framework

(04/04/2013)

The Secretary General of the Office of the Education Council, Dr. Sasithara Pichaichannarong, recently talked about the national qualification framework which the Cabinet asked the Ministry of Education to mobilize. She said that the OEC had organized a workshop seminar on the mobilization of the national qualification framework to practicum during which employers and business owners discussed and shared their ideas on this issue.

Dr. Sasithara said that the OEC was developing the national qualification framework to detail professional competency as well as to connect the project of educational development to both vocational and higher educations. Recently, there was a meeting with the ten ASEAN countries in Indonesia which was also attended by participants from Australia and New Zealand. The meeting agreed to formulate an ASEAN-level national qualification framework for all ASEAN countries by the end of 2018 so that it could be used as a standard for studying and working.

"On 2 May, New Zealand will ask the OEC to host a meeting on the national qualification framework. This framework will test skills and competency for around 200-300 jobs and guarantee workers' knowledge and abilities," said Dr. Sasithara.

Source: Khom Chad Luek Newspaper