Concept note

Introduction
Home to 625 million people, the dynamic Southeast Asia (SEA) has increasingly
proven its standings in the world. Coupled with a strong economic growth of
5.3%, the region has gained strides in education, especially Education for All
(EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). That said, it still faces critical
challenges in human resource due to fierce competition of a global market and
the pressure of building strong, cohesive partnership among member states.
Lifelong learning thus emerges as an optimal solution since it enables whole
societies to better themselves without placing enormous economic burden on
governments. Unfortunately, there is no regional agenda for lifelong learning,
and consequently development in this field greatly varies from nation to nation
with the majority staying at the lower end. For this reason, this project is
proposed with an aim to create a regional agenda for lifelong learning.

Objectives
1. Establish a research-informed knowledge bank of lifelong learning conditions
in SEA
2. Create the first regional agenda on lifelong learning
3. Foster future regional endeavours in lifelong learning and continuing/nonformal education
4. Stimulate regional integration, especially in education

Implementation
The project will involve ministerial officials, academics from all over the region,
as well as international organisations in lifelong learning, all of whom will be
organised as follows:

The Project Management Board:

Policy Group: one senior ministerial official per country appointed by

his/her Minister of Education and the Indonesian Minister of Education and
Culture as chair
Expert Group: three academics specialising in non-formal education who
will be shortlisted from a pool of candidates nominated by the Ministries
(one candidate per country)
Coordination Group: four members of the Southeast Asian Ministers of
Education Organisation (SEAMEO) Regional Centre for Lifelong Learning
(CELLL) and one ad-hoc expert for publication
Stakeholders:
SEAMEO CELLL
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL)
ASEM-LLL Hub
DVV International, Regional Office South and Southeast Asia
UNESCO Bangkok
Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE)
University of Tsukuba

11 National Committees:
Focal Point: Director-General (or Deputy-Director) of Continuing/Non-formal
Education Department
Researchers
The project comprises four stages and is expected to span 14 months:
Stage 1 serves a preparatory role as it establishes the necessary personnel,
work guidelines and action plan. More importantly, most of the time budget in
this stage will be spent on research training.
Stage 2 is the study into LLL in ASEAN - the first component of the project. In
this stage, each National Committee will collect data of LLL conditions in their
countries and, towards the end of Stage 2, submit a national report to the Expert
Group, who will analyse the data.
Stage 3 is the drafting of the agenda based on all the data and their analysis.
This will be a joint effort of the Expert Group and the Policy Group.
Stage 4 commences once the draft of the agenda is ready. First, a consultation
seminar will be held where Stakeholders will contribute to the agenda by giving
additional input, with which the complete agenda will be composed. The final
conference then follows with the introduction of the finalised agenda. The
agenda, as well as all other documents, will be published.