JAKARTA: The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) is offering scholarships for teachers from across the country especially for distant learning involving local and foreign universities
AKARTA: The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) is offering scholarships for teachers from across the country especially for distant learning involving local and foreign universities.
'It provides a flexible learning system because teachers can still work while pursuing their degrees. We offer the program for teachers from elementary to high school. For elementary, we are collaborating with 23 universities and 67 polytechnics in Indonesia, Southeast Asian countries, China, Japan and South Korea. More than 10,000 elementary teachers have joined the program since 2007,' SEAMEO Spokesman Fuad Hasan told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
SEAMEO is a government body under the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry, but not under ASEAN. It is a collaboration between the education ministries of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Timor Leste.
'The organization aims to improve quality of education, research and innovation for the people and educators,' Fuad went on.
Besides offering scholarships under its regional open learning centre, the organization also focuses on training language, science and mathematics teachers as well as conducting research on nutrition in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia.
'We plan to mandate certain schools in West Java, Yogyakarta, South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara to conduct teaching in local languages for first to third graders around next year. We have conducted local research that proves that students understand the subjects better in their local language. The students will learn Indonesian language as a separate subject so they can start learning fully in Indonesian in fourth grade,' Fuad said.
For science teachers, the organization will give the Ki Hajar Dewantara Award next year for the three Southeast Asian teachers with the best academic paper on innovation in science education.
SEAMEO will celebrate its 50th anniversary on Nov. 30.
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