DFA Highlights Education as Key to ASEAN’s Social, and Economic Transformation

Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary for ASEAN Affairs Junever Mahilum-West delivers a lecture before the participants of UST’s 5th Annual Model ASEAN Meeting on 29 January 2019. (DFA-ASEAN photo)

MANILA 06 February 2019 – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) highlighted the importance of education as a key component in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) social and economic transformation in a Model ASEAN Meeting held on 29 January 2019 at the University of Santo Tomas (UST)-hosted 5th Annual Model ASEAN Meeting. 

In her speech about Quality Driven Education and the Rise of Global Students in Southeast Asia, Foreign Assistant Secretary for ASEAN Affairs Junever Mahilum-West highlighted education as key to ASEAN’s development, adding that it “contributes to the enhancement of the region’s competitiveness, and is increasingly critical to the social and economic transformation of ASEAN.”

She also enumerated several important achievements and initiatives of ASEAN’s education sector such as the ASEAN Workplan on Education 2016-2020, the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangements in eight services, and the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework, all of which will impact ASEAN’s global students.

With the theme “Gearing Towards ASEAN 2030: A Societal Mobility and Harmonious Community through the region’s equitable growth and inclusive development”, the event was attended by more than a hundred participants, including students from Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and China.

The event was helmed by UST’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies Chair Professor Lino Baron, and organized by the UST Model ASEAN Meeting and UST Asian Studies Society. Other speakers included Dr. Herman Kraft of the University of the Philippines and Executive Director Nestor Palabyab of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The UST’s Asian Studies Society (ASSOC) has been organizing the Annual Model ASEAN Meeting for five years now. The conferences last for three days and invites delegates from the Thomasian Community as well as from other universities inside and outside of the country. During the activity, the delegates simulate real ASEAN meetings, from the preparatory meetings up to the Summit meetings. END