Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha delivers the closing speech at the conference (Photo: VNA)
The consensus was reached at a two-day ASEM conference on innovative education and human resources building for sustainable development, which wrapped up in Hue city, central Thua Thien-Hue province, on March 31st.
Local and international speakers delivered 17 speeches, focusing on the role of education and human resources for sustainable development in the 21st century; opportunities, challenges and the role of related parties; facts and lessons in Asia and Europe; and Asia-Europe cooperation in innovative education and human resources building for sustainable development.
The participants also agreed to enhance inter-sector access in education and training to boost people’s comprehensive development, create lifelong learning opportunities associated with the fourth industrial revolution, and promote affiliation among involved parties in designing education and training programmes.
They are set to increase STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and ICT application in educational reform, diversify forms of cooperation, including public-private partnership, and bolster technology renovation and transfer in education and training.
The delegates also agreed to build and implement an ASEM skills agenda for the 21st century and set up a network to share information about education and human resources development.
At the closing ceremony, Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said the event was a chance for ASEM to establish cooperation networks, from bilateral collaboration among ASEM members to links among educational facilities. Such cooperation networks would help improve manpower training quality so as to meet the need for sustainable development in each member, each continent, and the whole world, he said.
The conference was an important preparation for the 6th ASEM Education Ministers’ Meeting in Seoul (the Republic of Korea) and the 13th ASEM Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Nay Pyi Taw (Myanmar) in November 2017, and the 12th ASEM Summit in Brussels (Belgium) in 2018./.