50 Students and 134 participants, including university leaders, regional organisations and business representatives from all 51 ASEM partner countries, gathered in Singapore on 9 – 13 October 2017 for the 6th ASEF Rectors’ Conference and Students’ Forum (ARC6). Held in partnership with the Singapore Management University (SMU), the multi-stakeholder platform was themed ‘Future-ready Universities and Graduates: Quality Education Beyond the Horizon’ and consisted of 2 programme elements: a Students’ Forum, followed by the Rectors’ Conference, both of which consisted of panel discussions, skills trainings, study visits and working group sessions that focused on the following 3 sub-topics:
- Interdisciplinarity in Education and Research: How can education/research build upon the diversity and inherent interdependencies of academic disciplines?
- Lifelong Learning: Holistic and Global Education: What are the suitable approaches in combining values, knowledge and skills training to make universities a hotspot for building more socially and environmentally responsible universities and graduates? Is learning on-the-go the future of education?
- Access to Quality Education: What are some of the strategies that universities could adopt to integrate disability, technology and financial issues in ensuring an inclusive education curriculum, and what could be the role of the students in this process?
HE Dr Janil PUTHUCHEARY, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Education of Singapore and HE Liviu-Marian POP, Minister of National Education of Romania graced the closing plenary of the conference and took part in a dialogue session with the participants on the topic of “ASEM Education Collaboration”. ARC6 resulted in 2 Policy Recommendation sets, representing the perspectives of universities as well as students, which were handed over to the respective ministers. The recommendations were also channeled and conveyed by ARC6 representatives at the ASEM Education Ministers’ Meeting (ASEMME6) that took place on 21 – 22 November 2017 in Seoul, Korea.