H E Mr Pongpol Adireksarn, Minister of Education, Thailand,
Mr Kochiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am greatly honoured by Your Excellency’s presence at this Unveiling Ceremony of Mom Luang Pin Malakul’s Statue and the dedication of the Darakarn Building as Mom Luang Pin Malakul Centenary Building. We also extend our warm welcome to Mr Kochiro Matsuura, the UNESCO Director General.

The foundation stone for the present Darakarn Building was laid on 3 January 1969, to house the offices of the two international organizations namely, the UNESCO Asian Regional Office and the SEAMEO Secretariat (SEAMES). Since then the works of the two organizations have greatly expanded and diversified, but remain focus on the same objectives of human resource development through education.

Thanks to Mom Luang Pin’s vision and foresight, UNESCO and the Southeast Asian Ministers Organization have been inseparable in many ways. It was at the completion of the UNESCO Conference of Ministers of Education and Ministers Responsible for Economic Planning of Member States in Asia in Bangkok in November 1965 that the Ministers of Education from Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the Chairman of the Philippines National Commission for UNESCO and Mr. Eugene Black, Special Advisor to President Lyndon Johnson of the United States met to consider regional cooperation in the field of education. It was agreed that it was the responsibility of the Southeast Asian countries to provide suggestions for possible regional cooperation and develop selective and specific regional projects for educational development in the region. Subsequently, a Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Secretariat (SEAMES) was established under the directorship of Dr Kaw Swasdi Panich. It was to become the drive-engine for the concrete realization of the founders’ vision. The new organization was proudly recognized as an “Asian Initiative”, and in Mom Luang Pin’s words, “Asian cooperation” and “Asian responsibility” could very well be the guiding principles in SEAMES future work.

Today, the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), is well established as an inter governmental organization, focusing on human resource development in the areas of Education, Science, Agriculture, Health and Culture in the Southeast Asian region. The Organization has 15 specialized Regional Centres in 8 countries who have provided hundreds of training programmes, research and consulting services for the benefit of over a million Southeast Asian citizens directly and indirectly.

Today marks another auspicious day in the timeline of SEAMEO. The Royal Thai Government has reconfirmed its commitment made 37 years ago, while at the same time, recognizes the role of its most prominent Minister of Education Mom Luang Pin Malakul as a co-founder of SEAMEO by renaming this building Mom Luang Pin Malakul Centenary Building in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of his birth in 2003.

Just as both UNESCO and the SEAMEO Secretariat have been delivering their excellent educational services to the region and to the host countries for more than three decades under the Darakarn roof, we will continue to do so for years to come under the roof of wisdom as provided by Mom Luang Pin and other education visionaries. We are both united in our concerns for a better quality of life through education, science and culture. We look forward to closer cooperation in these areas, especially in expanding access to and improving quality of education and learning, preventive health education, IT development for education and the safeguarding of cultural heritage in the Southeast Asian region.