3rd APEC Education Ministerial Meeting - Ambassador Choi Seok Young
The Honorable Ministers,
Distinguished Delegates,
1. At the outset, I would like to convey heartfelt greetings of Ambassador Mario Artaza, the Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat, who could not join this important event due to prior engagements.
2. On behalf of the APEC Secretariat, I would like to extend my deep appreciation to the hosts of this Meeting for their warm hospitality and excellent arrangements. This meeting certainly demonstrates Chile's firm commitments to advancing the objectives of APEC and the aspirations of the Leaders of the APEC community.
3. Before going into the substance of the Meeting, let me start by stressing the fundamental objectives of APEC. APEC has common goal of building stable, prosperous and secure Community in the Asia and Pacific region. To this end, the APEC member economies are committed to pursue Trade and Investment Liberalisation and Facilitation (TILF) and cooperation in ECOTECH. Education and human capacity building are essential vehicles for achieving these APEC's fundamental objectives.
4. Thanks to the rapid process of globalization, the world and our way of life have been drastically changed. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) opened up new horizons for international cooperation in the field of education. This certainly provides us with great opportunities and, at the same time, significant challenges. We have no doubt that education empowers people to be fully integrated in the knowledge-based economies. This Meeting is therefore quite opportune and crucial in times of changes.
5. Chile chose "One Community, Our Future" as the central theme for 2004. This precisely reflects the common desires of Leaders, Ministers and other stakeholders to continue to build a strong and vibrant APEC region through close collaboration among member economies. The main theme is supported by seven sub-themes, which include growth and stability, among others. It is not surprising that education and human resources development are at the core of these sub-themes in 2004. It is also notable that "Skills for the Coming Challenges" adopted as main theme for this meeting certainly supports and strengthens the over-arching theme for the Chile's year.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
6. Thus far, APEC has attached great importance to the implementation of the Strategy on Human Capacity Building (HCB). Human resource development deals with cross-cutting issues and its Working Group has successfully operated three networks, that is, the Education Network or EDNET; the Capacity Building Network (CBN); and the Labour and Social Protection Network (LSPN).
7. Education has played an essential role in helping APEC Economies meet their economic and social needs in the knowledge-based society. EDNET has made significant progress in promoting education in the APEC region, in particular, from development of strategic alliances to successful initiatives in the field of information technology. Building on these successes, we could develop human resources more effectively to achieve sustainable growth.
8. This Meeting is charged with demanding tasks. The APEC Leaders adopted the "Bangkok Declaration on Partnership for the Future" last year, which made direct reference to the crucial role of the education. It reiterated Leaders' commitment to accelerate progress towards the Brunei Goals of expanding Internet access. The Declaration also called for the protection of intellectual property rights and implementation of the e-APEC Strategy in partnership with relevant stakeholders.
9. Leaders also voiced support for science and technology innovation. They stressed the upgrading of English-language and computer skills for effective use of the Internet. Another priority area was cyber-education and ICT capacity building, particularly for small and micro enterprises.
10. The APEC Ministerial Meeting (AMM) last year issued a Joint Statement echoing the Leaders commitment on the development of a "Five-year Strategic Plan for e-Learning" in the region. It provided recommendations to improve access to the internet infrastructure for teachers and students, availability of innovative educational contents using the internet and teachers' capacity to use technology. The AMM also encouraged member economies to undertake measures to provide adequate knowledge and practical use of English as a working language within the APEC region. Such measures focus, in particular, on strengthening current distance learning methods, exchanging best practices and establishing a framework for increasing appropriate use of English. The target groups were identified as youth, micro-enterprises and SMEs, in various areas of economic activity, including standards and conformance.
11. As we are well aware, the common core of the four sub-themes of this meeting is how best we could provide the quality of learning in the age of knowledge-based society. They are also reflections of challenges for us to best adapt ourselves to the changing environment. Yesterday, Senior Education Officials discussed these four sub-themes and produced concrete recommendations for the Ministers for their further consideration. I believe that this Meeting will produce practical and substantial outcomes, rightly responding to the instructions of Leaders and other stakeholders. Taking this opportunity, I wish to briefly highlight the main thrust of each sub-theme:
12. The first sub-theme is "Teaching English and other Foreign Languages". In the era of globalization, the importance of the English education cannot be over emphasized, because English will increase the capacity of people to communicate and exchange ideas and goods across borders; The second sub-theme is "Stimulating Learning in Mathematics and Science", which is also a key component of the innovation cycle; The third one is "Using Technology for Teaching and Learning". It is essential to expand the use of new technology for teachers and students, particularly, for the students to collect, collate and analyze proper information and to develop capacity of problem resolution; and the last one is "Governance and Systematic Reform", which is also vital to increase access to quality educational services and help economies develop internationally competitive workers.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
13. As human resource development becomes more and more important, we are expecting a growing number of initiatives and cooperative activities by member economies in this field. In APEC, HRDWG and EDNET will have greater accountability in implementing relevant tasking and projects. Programmes and projects on skills building, lifelong education as well as cooperation among government, management and labour contribute to the creation of a prosperous community in APEC.
14. It is indeed a daunting challenge to translate all the tasks into full operation, and to meet the growing demand for education and human capacity building, with limited financial and administrative resources. In order to carry out HRD and Education projects in a more efficient manner, additional external funds will be required to supplement the current budget allocated to them. In this regard, I wish to appeal to members to explore all avenues to strengthen the funding base for supporting the activities in these fields, including exploring avenues with the private sector.
15. The APEC Secretariat will continue to provide our utmost support and cooperation to these groups. We will provide practical support through the new website, which is designed to provide a solid platform for APEC's future web presence and identity, as well as an effective central store of information on the APEC process. In addition, we will continue to prepare and distribute media releases and encourage fora to take advantage of the new APEC E-newsletter to promote APEC's work. All APEC fora are invited to contribute articles to the APEC E-newsletter to showcase the practical outcomes of discussions and projects.
16. Finally, I look forward to fruitful discussion in the next two days. I am confident that the successful conclusion to the 3rd APEC Education Ministerial Meeting will lay down a solid ground for making progress in pursuit of APEC's vision of our common prosperity.
Thank you.