APCEIU-SEAMOLEC Multicultural Education in ASEAN

Bridging the Gap: APCEIU and SEAMOLEC Project on Multicultural Education in ASEAN

In the rise of globalization, multicultural understanding has become an important issue. It has open the gate for trans-national movements of workers seeking better chances in different region, not to mention the refugees from the conflicts areas who are also looking for a better life. With different cultures clashed into one region, the needs of understanding the differences of cultures became the principle concern towards establishing peace in the community. The meaning of peace expanded, not only to the extent of the absence of war, but into the tolerance and respect for other cultures.

Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) is a UNESCO Category II institute working towards a Culture of Peace in the Asia-Pacific Region. Since its inception, in 2000, APCEIU has developed several education materials for primary, secondary and tertiary school teachers and teacher trainers on Education for International Understanding (EIU). In 2007, APCEIU is collaborating with SEAMOLEC in “Situation Analysis of E-Learning System for Multicultural Education in ASEAN”. This is a part of three year project supported by the Ministry of Educaton and Human Resource Development, Republic of Korea, entitled ROK-ASEAN Education Development Project 2007 – 2009: Multi-Media Educational Development for Multicultural Society.

In the first year, SEAMOLEC and APCEIU will collaborate in analyzing the current situation of EIU through the multimedia. The situational analysis will be used as the base for developing multimedia education materials for teachers in 2008, collaborating also with other sister centres; SEAMEO RETRAC and SEAMEO INNOTECH. And the final year of the project will be the launching and dissemination of the resource package.

This projects aims for teachers and trainers, with elementary school teachers as the main target. Aside from implementing multicultural education, in this project, the Korean Government also want to share their experience in ICT with the ASEAN countries.