The ASEM Education and Research Hub for Lifelong Learning has an Advisory Board, which consists of representatives from national ministries and international organisations.
Profiles of Advisory Board Members
National Strategies for Lifelong Learning
Toward the 3rd ASEM Education Ministers Meeting, 2011
The Chair of the Advisory Board is Dr. Piniti Ratananukul, Higher Education Commission, Ministry of Education, Thailand.
As Albert Einstein once said, “Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” Lifelong Learning is flexible, diverse and available at different times and in different places. It crosses sectors, promoting learning beyond traditional schooling and throughout adult life. In Thailand, we put a great importance on lifelong learning by executing the Long-Term Development Plan for Higher Education with the aim to provide lifelong learning source for the people after-retirement and within the workplaces, to develop new skills for a new business, as well as to develop and use ICT to support lifelong learning opportunity.
The Co-Chair of the Advisory Board is Dmitrijs Kulss, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia.
"Policy without evidence is irrelevant. Nowadays, in the global environment it is crucial for policy makers to benefit from the evidence that is based on collaborative research.
ASEM LLL Hub provides clear model of cooperation between universities and national departments of education and directly targets enhancing lifelong learning opportunities towards prosperity and well-being.
As co-chairman of ASEM LLL Hub Advisory Board my main task is to facilitate such cooperation, involve even more European partners in the process and ensure that research networks are duly advised of the evidence demand expressed by the Board members."
The second former Chair of the Advisory Board was Zoltán Loboda, Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture.
"The cooperation between Asia and Europe in the field of lifelong learning for a more comprehensive and sustainable partnership is crucial. The ASEM Lifelong Learning Hub gives opportunity for researchers, practitioners and policy makers of the two regions to cooperate in this field of common interest.
The objective of the Advisory Board is to create a link between policy and practice, a meeting place for Asian and European stakeholders and a forum generating bilateral and multilateral projects; and to empower stakeholders through supporting policy learning".
The first former Chair of the Advisory board was Jørn Skovsgaard, Danish Ministry of Education.
It was an honour and a pleasure for me to chair the initial work in the ASEM LLL initiative. In 2001 the initiative came in line with a number of ground breaking projects in international cooperation on education policy - The Lisbon Process and The Copenhagen process just to mention two initiatives facing the challenge of establishing a European community of education and at the same time maintain education as a national responsibility and a sovereign domain of the national state. However the ASEM LLL embraced deeper cultural, economic and technological diversities than any other international cooperation on education policy at the time.
And it focussed an area of education - LLL - that despite its potentials to the global and national economy and the well-being of a vast majority of people in our nations enjoyed little and in some countries no political attention at all. But we managed to bridge the gaps, create new awareness and turn diversity into an asset. I am truly grateful to the courageous, dedicated and like-minded members of our working groups - or as it made progress - a working family seems to be the more proper term to describe our relations. Today the outcome of the pioneers' hard work speaks for itself. We produced new concepts and developed new modes for cross border, cross regional and cross cultural cooperation. The organisation that we created - The ASEM Education and Research Hub for Lifelong Learning has already proved to be strong, productive and sustainable. It holds a huge potential - You ain't seen nothing - We are yet to begin!
