Higher education in Asian countries and the role of international ...

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5.1.4 UNESCO-Bangkok office role in the development of higher education in Asia
UNESCO-Bangkok office is engaged in many activities to address issues and challenges
pertaining to the development of higher education in the member countries. Some major areas of
action are: higher education reforms, access, equity, diversification, governance and
management, research capacity development, private sector, Accreditation and quality assurance,
and cross border higher education (Lee & Healy, 2006) UNESCO Bangkok office is supporting
policy reforms and capacity development. To achieve these objectives, this office is using
publications and informal and formal training as effective tools. Researcher has assumed that
UNESCO role can be studied through the initiatives that have been taken to support, promote
and develop higher education through capacity development measures. Such measures also
include publications and activities like conferences, workshops and forums.
Research studies, publications, country reports, guidelines and policy documents play an
important role the process of transformation, reform, expansion, and quality development of
higher education sector. Due to this importance of publications, Bangkok office gives priority to
the quality standards in both content and presentation of the material so that publications can
fulfill their important role in furthering the educational development in the region as well as in
the world (UNESCO-Bangkok, 2007)
Dissemination of ideas and information
In today‟s information society the exchange and flow of innovative ideas and productive
information has become an effective tools for transformation and reformation of human
societies. With the advancement in ICTs the accessibility to information has also increased so
now it is possible to reach who had never been reached in the past. The new technological
developments have not only broadened the opportunities and also have made the task more
challenging.
The Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education is UNESCO‟s most productive publisher of
books and public information materials among all field UNESCO offices in the world
(UNESCO-Bangkok, 2007). This office has published and distributed thousands of volumes of
books, pamphlets, audio-video and other material. Despite of such a rich history of document
production, there exists no data repository, which can provide detailed and organized information
on the documents produced and, events and activities arranged by UNESCO or UNESCO-