SEAMEO president tours VOCTECH Centre
By Lyna Mohammad & Laila Rahman

The exchange of documents between the Director of SEAMEO and the General Manager of Human Resources, DST. Looking on is Dr Edilberto C. De Jesus (C)

The Secretary of Education and President of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) Council, Dr Edilberto C. De Jesus, accompanied by the Philippines Ambassador to the country, Virginia H. Benavidez, visited the SEAMEO VOCTECH Centre in Gadong yesterday. The visit, his first visit to a SEAMEO member country in his capacity as the President of the Council, was to see at close hand the operations of a SEAMEO regional centre. They were greeted by the Director of the Centre, Awg Hj Mohd Daud Hj Mahmud, who then introduced the visiting delegates to staff members of the centre.

A multimedia presentation of SEAMEO VOCTECH by the Director as well as a School Adoption Project -Phase III by Deputy Director, Awg Saiful Anuar A.Rahim were presented to the visiting delegates.

Dr Edilberto also took the opportunity to officially open a training course for Vocational and Technical School teachers from SEAMEO member countries and witnessed the Memorandum of Understanding between the centre and DST Group. The visit, also attended by officials from the Philippine Embassy and SEAMEO VOCTECH staff members, concluded with a group photo.

From the centre, the group then headed to the University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and was greeted by the Vice Chancellor of UBD, Dr Hj Ismail bin Hj Duraman.

Dr Edilberto and his entourage also had the opportunity to watch a video presentation about UBD. The objective of the visit was to exchange information between the two countries particularly on education. Currently, University of the Philippines and De La Salle University, are two universities from the Philippines that have links with UBD, which is based on the Asean University Network.

Summary of the visit includes a discussion with the Minister of Education (MOE) Pehin Dato Hj Awg Abdul Aziz Hj Umar on issues and challenges that SEAMEO is facing, the preparations on the SEAMEC conference which will be hosted in the Sultanate next year, to increase and strengthen ties between the two countries bilaterally and multilaterally as a SEAMEO member in the education field, among others are the students and professional force exchange as well as research for the benefits of both countries.

The group will also be visiting the Tahfiz Al Quran Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Institute and schools that are under the 'School Adoption Programme" implemented by SEAMEO VOCTECH and UBD.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin