On 6 – 10 March 2023, SEAMEO CELLL participated and contributed to the SEAMEO Centres Policy Research Network (CPRN) Summit 2023, hosted by SEAMEO RECSAM in Penang, Malaysia. The event was to update trends on policy research, share on-going activities with the Centres, and plan the activities up to the Year 2024.
The theme of the Summit was “Embracing Inclusivity in Education, Science and Culture towards a Future-Ready Southeast Asia” to promote understanding and collaboration in research in the face of unprecedented challenges emerging from natural and social issues, and double-bladed, accelerating rates of technological developments.
A total of twenty-four papers were presented that reported the progress of on-going research, and introduced new studies for potential collaboration. SEAMEO CELLL’s presentation on “A comparative study of the Contemporary German VHS and the Japanese Kominkan and Shared Lessons to be Learnt from the Two Models for Southeast Asian Community Learning Centre Development” received much encouragement from the participants, including SEAMEO Secretariat Director as it promises impact on inclusivity through the development of wide networks of community learning centres for education for all.
SEAMEO CELLL also proposed in the breakout session, the Education Cluster, its plan of a regional project “Context of lifelong learning and learning society development in Southeast Asia,” which aims to promote and accelerate the building of learning society in the region. The plan was strongly nsupported by all the participants of the cluster. It will develop the full plan and present a working paper at 2023 Centre Director Meeting for endorsement.
The SEAMEO CPRN was established in March 2016 as a platform to enhance the relevance and sharpen the responsiveness of SEAMEO Centres and the Secretariat to the needs of education leaders for policy research to address regional human resource development issues in Southeast Asia.
This year, the Summit was held in conjunction with the second SEAMEO Science Olympiad (SEASO) with students across the SEAMEO region participating and demonstrating their ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-life technological problem-solving skills to address multiple issues including sustainable development.
