RESUME

Dr Arief Sukadi Sadiman, MSc, was appointed to be the Director of SEAMEO Secretariat on 1 June 2001. He was born in Kediri, East Java, Indonesia, on 20 March 1946. Married with three children, he got his Master Degree in Educational Technology at Syracuse University, USA (1979) and his PhD in the same area at the Institute of Teacher Training, Jakarta (1984) under sandwich programme with Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.

He joined Pustekkom (Centre for Communication & Information Technology, Ministry of National Education, Indonesia) since 1977 and has been involved in the development and expansion of Open Junior Secondary School as one of major programmes in open learning in Indonesia since 1979. He was also involved in the early development stage of Indonesia Open Learning University (1984-1986).

In 1990, he was appointed Director of Pustekkom, and since then he has been responsible for In-Service Teacher Training through Radio, Diploma Two Programme by Air for Primary School Teachers, Educational Television Broadcast and Tele-conferencing Programme between central and provincial offices of Ministry of National Education, Indonesia.

His centre is also developing other alternative solutions to educational and cultural problems by applying educational and information technology. He produced series of educational video and film programmes on character building and culture.

In 1986-1989, he served as national consultant for distance training at the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN) in Indonesia. His involvement in open and distance learning increased since the establishment of IDLN (Indonesian Distance Learning Network) in 1993, of which he is the project director. As a cross-sector network on open and distance learning, IDLN is to assist various sectors in Indonesia to develop education and training by utilising open learning system.

Currently, there are 15 members of IDLN, consisting of 9 ministries (Ministries of Agriculture, Finance, Health, Home Affairs, Manpower, National Education, Religious Affairs, and Trade and Industry), Private Sectors (such as Indonesia Telecommunication Co, Surabaya University, Institute of Banking Indonesia, Institute of Management Development) and Open Learning Institution (Indonesian Open University).

As leader of Indonesia delegation to Indonesia-Australia joint working group on Distance Education, he has been involved in the preparation of SEAMEO SEAMOLEC since 1995 and two years after (June 1997), he was appointed to be the Interim Director of SEAMEO SEAMOLEC. Three years after that, he was appointed to be the Director of SEAMEO SEAMOLEC. Then, since 1998, ICDE (International Council for Distance Education) elected him as a Vice President of ICDE for the Malay-Indonesia Cultural and Linguistic Region.

He has published several books, presented many papers in national, regional as well as international seminars/conferences on the area of education/instructional technology, open and distance learning.

He used to be a School Teacher (1968-1977) and until March 2001 he was still lecturing at Graduate Programme, State University of Jakarta.

During his directorships in Pustekkom, IDLN and SEAMEO SEAMOLEC, good relationship and working collaboration has been built with various countries, such as Southeast Asia countries, Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Japan, Korea, USA, and Regional/International Institution like UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, ACCU, AIBD, JICA and COL.