I

ndonesia has been officiated to host the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Education Secretariat, a momentous opportunity to bridge the interests of its member states and shape the strategic partnership of the two regions.

During the secretariat handover at the Fourth Asia-Europe Meeting of Ministers for Education (ASEMME4) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday, Djoko Santoso, Indonesia's Education and Culture Ministry's Higher Education director general, thanked the ASEM member countries for entrusting Indonesia to host the ASEMME secretariat for the October 2013-2017 period.

'We are in a very strategic position to determine prevailing regulations,' he said.

Djoko said that as a host, one of Indonesia's key tasks was to establish an educational standard within ASEM member countries to ease the mobility of students as well as educators between the two continents.

'Every country has a different qualification framework, which complicates the mobility of students and educators, and creates fewer opportunities to work abroad,' Djoko noted.

The ministry's planning and foreign cooperation bureau head, Ananto Kusuma Seta, added that during the four year period, Indonesia would utilize the opportunity to promote its universities.

At the ASEMME meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2011, Indonesia proposed to host the secretariat in 2013, which was later approved by all members that agreed to rotate the secretariat from Europe to Asia every four years.

Datuk Ab. Rahim Bin Md. Noor, the secretary-general of Malaysia's Higher Education Ministry, which hosted ASEMME4, said that Indonesia was mandated to observe and assist member countries in implementing the proposed initiatives and to inform the ministers on the progress achieved.

'Malaysia will cooperate with Indonesia. We will send our delegation to the secretariat to assist in planning and achieving the target set up by ASEM,' Noor told the Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The ASEM education meeting was part of the multifaceted and informal process of ASEM ' a forum for dialogue and cooperation between European and Asian countries ' which was launched in Bangkok in 1996. ASEM underlined the importance of education as a human resources investment during its meeting in Helsinki in 2006,

In 2008, ASEM Education Ministers met for the first time in Berlin, Germany, during which they emphasized the pivotal role of education and training to ensure economic and social development in both regions.

In 2009, at their second meeting in Hanoi, the ministers agreed to establish a rotating ASEM Education Secretariat. The secretariat is responsible for intensifying dialogue in education, organizing and coordinating ASEM educational activities, and summarizing and disseminating outcomes to increase the visibility of ASEM in the field of education.