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

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UNESCO Chairs and Networks, assisting in quality assurance, sharing of information and data.
Besides this, UNESCO is also engaged in promoting policy dialogues, quality enhancement and
capacity development in research, knowledge generation and knowledge sharing. Furthermore,
UNESCO is playing its role in the establishment of higher education system by the following
measures:
National capacity building and strengthening
Teacher training and policy development
Support in research and knowledge sharing
ICTs in education and in lifelong learning
UNESCO, being a leading organization of UN system in higher education, has played an
important role of a statutory body by erecting, adopting and facilitating more than eighteen legal
instruments that include: conventions, recommendations, treaties and agreement at international,
regional and sub-regional levels. These UNESCO legal instruments on higher education serve
the purpose of students, teachers, institutions and other stakeholders including states.
UNESCO achieves its goals in higher education through international conferences. This
organization is the pioneer body among UN agencies and world IGOs that organized world
conferences on higher education in 1998 and 2009.
UNESCO in Asia is present through its sixteen field offices but the UNESCO Bangkok office
has a central position. It is the Principal Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (PROAP).
UNESCO Bangkok office is also the regional office for education. It acts as technical advisory
body to all field offices and Member States of the region and the site of regional programs in
most areas covered by the Education Sector. UNESCO-Bangkok office has launched a eleven
major programs in education, policy reforms, innovation, sustainable development, HIV, social
sciences, oceanography, communication, information and statistics. One of the programs is Asia-
Pacific Program for Educational Innovation for Development (APEID), which is active in 47
Asia-Pacific UNESCO member states. This program focuses the development education
including higher education and ICT in Education through ten different projects and networks.
Where the Bangkok office is supporting UNESCO initiatives for higher education there it also
makes its own contributions to higher education sub-sector through capacity development and