topic Education

Joint responsibility for education - Asian-European cooperation under the ASEM process

Since 1996, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) has been a forum for an informal dialogue between the heads of state and government in Europe and Asia. It currently includes 27 EU states, the European Commission, 10 ASEAN states, the ASEAN Secretariat as well as China, Japan, Korea, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Australia, Russia and New Zealand.

Education and training have been a priority topic on the agenda since 2006 and have been discussed in great detail at regular meetings of the responsible ministers since 2008. The ministers responsible for education met for the first time in Berlin in 2008 by invitation of Germany. ASEMME1 (Asia-Europe Meeting of Ministers for Education) stressed the central role of education and training with a view to economic and social development. A strategic education partnership between both regions was agreed upon in the final resolution. In 2009, the ministers defined specific core areas of cooperation in Hanoi, Vietnam:

• quality assurance and recognition of credit points
• cooperation between higher education institutions and industry
• vocational education and training
• lifelong learning
• mobility

The third conference, ASEMME3, took place in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2011.

The ASEM Education Secretariat

The ASEM education process is given institutional support by a rotating ASEM Education Secretariat which has been located at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) since 2009 for a four-year period and is financially supported by the BMBF. Its tasks include the organization and coordination of activities adopted at the conferences of ministers and regular reports. The Secretariat will move to Indonesia in 2013.