Best practices in education amidst COVID-19

Dawn Marie A. Morales

SENIOR officials from education ministries of ASEAN member states came together for this year’s 15th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Education (SOM-ED), which was hosted by the country.

Held virtually, the theme for this year’s gathering was “Transforming Education the ASEAN Way: Forging Partnerships in the Age of Global Disruptions”.

During the meeting, education ministers shared their best practices amidst the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the international conference, the Department of Education mentioned international cooperative solutions on education notwithstanding the presence of a pandemic.

According to the DepEd, the challenge is to develop general ability to learn knowledge and skill for solving real-world problems and challenges. There is a need for digital cooperation strategy to ensure high quality and also in rich equity of education, even as we have been moving into the direction of futures education even without COVID-19.

For this year, the proposal for the development of the ASEAN Work Plan on Education 2021-2025 is expected to be completed through succeeding technical workshops and consultative meetings.

The SOM-ED administers cooperation on higher education and serves as an ASEAN mechanism to promote cooperation among ASEAN scholars, academicians, and scientists in the region; develop academic and professional human resource in the region; promote information dissemination among the ASEAN academic community; and enhance the awareness of regional identity and the sense of ‘ASEANness’ among members.

Apart from giving focus on the development of basic education, the progress on the Ad Hoc Working Group on ASEAN Higher Education Mobility to be hosted by Commission on Higher Education (CHED) will also be looked forward to during the forum.

The author is Teacher

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III at Eastern Porac National High School