To stimulate education collaborations between Southeast Asia and UK, from 14 – 20 September 2014 the SEAMEO Secretariat conducted a study visit to the United Kingdom as a follow-up action of the Centre Directors Meeting on July 2014 in Bangkok. Both the British Council and United Kingdom are associate and affiliate members of SEAMEO. The Directors of SEAMEO Centres attended the forum with SEAQIS being represented by Deputy Director for Program, Dr R Indarjani.
The primary purposes of the visit was to connect SEAMEO Centres and the SEAMEO Secretariat with relevant education research institutions and to gain a better understanding of the UK’s national education policies, research, curricula and delivery, as well as investigate partnerships between the UK Department of Education and private sectors.
There was an official meeting with the British Council which was represented by Higher Education Advisor, Research Council of UK, Quality Assurance Agency, Department of Business, Innovation and Skill and Department of Education, as well as the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which is the funding insitution for Research, Teaching and Knowledge Exchange initiatives. In addition, SEAMEO delegations also visited several UK universities including Queen Mary University of London, Aston University, University of New England and University of Swansea.
The visit was considerably productive and resulted in several collaborative regional initiatives and programs that cover education research, capacity building of both human resources and institutions, and the mobility of students, researchers and experts across Southeast Asian countries and the UK. SEAQIS gained much inspiration for the Centre’s future development. A continuation meeting will be held during the SEAMEO Congress (23-24 October 2014) in Bangkok to conceptualize the collaboration in more technical terms.