ANGARA EYES WIDER EDUC NETWORK IN ASIA, MORE SCHOLARSHIPS

With the goal of advancing the country's education system and applying best practices to improve professional performance, Sen. Edgardo J. Angara has brought the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) to the Philippines. Angara's talks with his counterparts in the SEA region has culminated in having the country host one of the centers of the SEAMEO.

"Beyond innovating our education system which is the core premise of the organization, we must also establish strong links with partner universities in the region for our students to pursue exchange trainings with," stressed Angara, referring to one of his primary goals in having the Philippine government accede to the organization. The Philippines hosts the Center for Graduate Studies and Research in Agriculture, one of the main thrusts of the SEAMEO.

Innotech, the regional center for Educational Innovation and Technology, is one of the 15 institutions of the SEAMEO, dedicated to identifying common and unique education problems and needs of SEA countries. It also aims to innovate and technology-based solutions.

"Both our teachers and students will greatly benefit from this system because it provides them a venue for wider scope of ideas with other regional centers and to learn from the experiences of their counterparts. Along the way, not only do we practically improve our education curricula; we will also be able to develop new technologies the agriculture sector can harness. This will be an ideal opportunity for our education system to improve," shared Angara, former President of the University of the Philippines.

At the recent committee budget briefings, Angara, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, urged education agencies such as the CHED and TESDA to pursue more exchange scholarship arrangements with various universities in the SEA region. Angara himself has negotiated for the commitment of some of the Asian ambassadors to the country for more exchange programs with Philippine universities.

Recently the Center has piloted the Applied Academics/Tech-Prep Program, a method of using contextual learning for math and science. It assists the DepEd implement a Decentralized Education Management program in support of the Basic Education Strategic Reform Agenda (BESRA), designed to improve access and quality of basic education in the country.

At present, SEAMEO is composed of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam. Located in these countries are centers for language, science and mathematics, higher education, tropical biology, archaeology and fine arts, graduate studies and research in agriculture, technical and vocational education, public health and tropical medicine, training, history and tradition and open learning.