Celebrating the 50^th SEAMEO Anniversary:

International Seminar on Education in Southeast Asia

On October 8, 2015, Four SEAMEO Centres in Indonesia (SEAMEO QITEP in Language, SEAMEO QITEP in Mathematics, SEAMEO QITEP in Sciences and SEAMEO SEAMOLEC) held a Seminar on Education in Southeast Asia  with the theme “Promoting Global Citizenship Through the Strengthening of Teachers’ Character and Competencies”. The seminar was conducted to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of the Southeast Asian Ministries of Education Organization (SEAMEO). This event was also supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia and SEAMEO Secretariat in Bangkok, Thailand.

The seminar was aimed to provide a forum for teachers, educators and researchers to review issues, exchange of ideas and share experiences especially on innovation in education at all levels and  give an update of education development from each SEAMEO’s Member Countries. The keynote speaker of this one-day seminar was the Minister of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia, H.E. Anies Baswedan, Ph D.

There were 18 presentations to complement the presentation of the keynote speaker.  They were the representatives and Governing Board Members for Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.  Some of the exemplary teachers were also invited  as the speakers to share their good practices in teaching.

On this occasion, SEAMEO QITEP in Language invited 3 speakers to share their good practices in language teaching. They were Dr Tonisito M.C. Umali, Esq. from the Ministry of Education of the Philippines with his presentation entitled “Mother Tongue – Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) and Its Role in The Philippine Enhanced K-12 Basic Education Program”, Ms. Delly Anne, M.M. from SMAN 27 Jakarta discussed her result of action research “Increasing learning activity and improving speaking skills of students learning French language using Guessing Word and Information Gap Learning Models at SMA 27 Jakarta”, and Mr. Wasito Hadi, M.A from SMAN 47 Jakarta presented his article entitled “Teaching Expression of Offering Using EGRA Model”

The Minister of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia, on his keynote speech, expected that teachers will have new  perspectives on how to strengthen their character and competencies. Creating the joyful schools;  becoming the inspiring teachers for  students and last but not least, creating a good culture in the process of teaching and learning at the school are the keys for teachers’ character building and competencies.