The SEAMEO Secretariat, in collaboration with Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University (PSRU), organised the 8th Evaluation Meeting of Pre-Service Student Teacher Exchange in Southeast Asia (SEA-Teacher Project) on 8-10 November 2019 at Convention Hall, Teepawich Building, Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University, Phitsanulok, Thailand. The meeting aimed to review and evaluate the implementation of the last 7th batch for improving the future programme as well as to discuss and plan for the 9th batch in 2020.

 

 

 

A total of 137 delegates comprising of presidents and the management-level officials from universities and teacher education institutes in Southeast Asian countries and Japan actively and enthusiastically participated in the meeting. The participating universities included 33 universities from Indonesia, one university from Japan, 20 universities from the Philippines, and 13 universities from Thailand.

The signing ceremony was held at the end of the meeting on 8 November 2019, with over 110 universities expressing their interest to participate in the 9th batch. Moreover, the University of Tsukuba from Japan, the affiliate member of SEAMEO, kicked off the first pilot project in collaboration with Indonesia University of Education (Indonesia), Central Luzon State University (Philippines), and Khon Kaen University (Thailand). The practicum period of the pilot project will be 30 days, similar to the regular schedule, but it will start sooner in February 2020. The Beliefs, Events, and Values Inventory (BEVI), an IT-based instrumental tool, will be applied to assess student’s personal growth throughout participation in the pilot project.

“We realize the significant improvement of the SEA-Teacher project in nurturing pre-service student teachers with multicultural understanding, by providing opportunities for teacher a training in different countries, and we would like to contribute to SEAMEO Priority No.5 – Revitalizing Teacher Education,” said Dr Nakao Nomura, the Director of Division of International Exchange Support, Global Commons Regional Director, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan, Office of Global Initiatives, Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, the University of Tsukuba, Japan.

 

 

One of the highlights of the meeting was the proposal for the transformation of mechanism and evaluation. Firstly, the internship period will be reduced to once a year starting from July to September 2020 but, it remains 30 days within the said three months. Second, we will open for the participating universities to select their partners. Lastly, the receiving university will be responsible for evaluating the blog and performance of its inbound students.

 

So far, a total of 2,294 students from 133 universities from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have participated in the project since the first batch in 2016.
The 9th evaluation meeting will be hosted by Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia, in November 2020.

For more information about the programme, please visit http://seateacher.seameo.org