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SEARCA promotes TVET in agriculture and community-based food and nutrition school gardening in SEAMEO education workshop for Indonesia

  • 27 November 2015

Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr., SEARCA Director, leads discussion on TVET as a priority area with Indonesian MOEC representatives. Aside from SEARCA, BIOTROP and VOCTECH were the SEAMEO centers in this sub-group for the center directors’ workshop.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – With the focus of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) on graduate education and agricultural research, the Center managed to chime in well with the seven priorities of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization’s (SEAMEO) efforts to address the needs of its member countries’ education sectors.

In a consultation-workshop on the seven SEAMEO priorities with the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC), SEARCA and most if not all of 21 SEAMEO centers all over Southeast Asia converged here on 16-17 November 2015 to present and synergize how they may assist the MOEC along this new SEAMEO education agenda.

This new education agenda emphasizes the following themes:

  1. Achieving universal early childhood care and education;
  2. Addressing barriers to inclusion;
  3. Resiliency in the face of emergencies;
  4. Promoting technical and vocational education and training (TVET);
  5. Revitalizing teacher education;
  6. Harmonizing higher education and research; and
  7. Adopting a 21st century curriculum.

Among these seven priorities, SEARCA led discussions on 4) promoting technical and vocational education and training, and presented its initiatives related to 6) harmonizing higher education and research and 7) adopting a 21st century curriculum in separate workshops of the SEAMEO center directors and managers for research/knowledge management.

The meeting brought out many areas of synergy and assistance that SEAMEO centers offered to extend to Indonesia’s MOEC, where SEARCA’s inputs stood out in addressing gaps in TVET in agriculture and in advancing community-based food and nutrition school gardening that SEARCA is piloting for the Philippines Department of Education. In addition, SEARCA presented in the secretaries' workshop its best practices in providing proactive staffwork in support of the center director's initiatives.

SEARCA team at SEAMEO 7 priorities meeting in Indonesia pose for posterity.Led by Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr., Director, SEARCA’s representatives to the SEAMEO consultation workshop hosted by Indonesia included Dr. Bessie M. Burgos, Program Head for Research and Development; Dr. Maria Celeste H. Cadiz, Program Head for Knowledge Management; and Ms. Adoracion T. Robles, Executive Coordinator, Office of the Director and Unit Head, Management Services. (Maria Celeste H. Cadiz)