4th APEC Education Ministerial Meeting (AEMM) in Lima Peru
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Contents |
Responding to Changing Work Requirements
The overall theme for the 4th Education Ministerial, as discussed in the Ministerial papers, is Education To Achieve 21st Century Competencies for All. This theme reflects the dependency of all APEC Economies on a high-quality education system to prepare todays students for the workforce of tomorrow. As the chart below illustrates, Murnane and Levy (2004) have documented that with the advent of new information communication technologies, there is less demand for lower order job skills and a much greater demand for new 21st Century competencies and skills.
This affects all types of workers from office secretaries to company presidents, from car mechanics to car manufacturers. Workers proficient in 21st Century competencies including the ability to think critically, problem solve, and communicate are in demand.
21st Century Competencies: Eastern and Western Strengths
The APEC region represents a rich education laboratory in which the strengths of Eastern and Western educational systems are compared with the aim of developing new combined educational systems better than each of its parts. Eastern systems are strong in producing able students with deep content knowledge in mathematics and science fields. Western systems are also able to produce successful students but they are more likey to be strong in process skills that apply knowledge.
APEC Education Priorities
The representatives of the 19 APEC economies at the 4th AEMM issued a Joint Statement of educational priorities, including such topics as prevention of risk caused by disasters and the promotion of 21st Century Skills. To help APEC education systems achieve these 21st Century Skills, the APEC Ministers have identified four priority areas--math and science, career and technical education (CTE), language learning, and information & communications technologies (ICT) and systemic reform--in which to achieve 21st Century competencies and skills:
Education Ministers' 21st Century Agenda
The Education Ministers at the 4th AEMM in June 2008 in Lima, Peru approved the following education agenda in each of the four 21st Century priority areas:
- Mathematics and Science can no longer be viewed as subjects relevant only to scientists and engineers. Mastering mathematical and scientific principles is essential to navigating the data-driven and technological world of the 21st century, no matter one’s industry. The Ministers released a strategic action plan and recommendations for priorities of mathematics and science, including:
Standards and Assessments
1. Translate and analyze mathematics and science standards comparing high-performing APEC Economies with others.
2. Compare differences between Members with sequential mathematics and science standards that teach topics in a prescribed sequence across semesters (algebra I, geometry, algebra II, trigonometry, calculus, and statistics) and members that use an integrated approach in which multiple topics are taught within blocks of the same school year.
3. Develop an item bank of APEC member test items in mathematics and science with items reported by difficulty level (percentage of students in the Economy answering correctly).
Teacher Quality and Instruction
4. Encourage the expanded use of the lesson-study approach through on-line demonstrations, videos, and a training guide.
5. Launch multi-year collaborative online professional development including building on open content that is produced by reputable research institutions and math-science associations and evaluated for effectiveness.
Policies and Research
6. Conduct case studies into lessons learned about how and why APEC economies change policy directions in mathematics and science including revising standards and coursetaking requirements.
7. Evaluate course requirements and assessments required for upper secondary school graduation or college admissions as a mechanism for ensuring adequate preparation for 21st Century competencies.
- Career and Technical Education (CTE) covers academic education combined with real-world application and is becoming more vital as the workforce is constantly adapting to new technological innovations and workers transition to multiple jobs over a lifetime. CTE is an area of concern for HRD's Labour and Social Protection Network, including the conference on Sustainable Career Development throughout Working Life. The Ministers released a strategic action plan and recommendations for priorities of career and technical education, including:
Standards and Assessments
1. Compare CTE frameworks across Economies, learning about effective practices to integrate academics with vocational training to ensure appropriate workplace preparation and to elevate the prestige of CTE training in APEC Economies.
Teacher Quality and Instruction
2. Identify effective strategies for improving teacher training programs for CTE instructors providing them with up-to-date resources and tools.
3. Share evidence-based practices for effectively involving employers, industry groups, and the service sector in developing curriculum.
4. Strengthen CTE development of curriculum, especially through means such as on-line training programs available to APEC members.
Policies and Research
5. Share good practices on involving employers, industry groups, and the service sector in drafting policy related to competencies, curriculum, and assessments.
6. Undertake analyses in one or more vocational sectors that compare CTE/TVET skills and qualifications in order to create common benchmarks.
Margaret Spellings, United States Secretary of Education, and Luis Giampietri Rojas, Vice President of Peru
- Learning each other's languages Because we now live in a global economy, being able to speak others’ languages and communicate in culturally sensitive ways is essential to trade and other forms of international exchange. The Ministers released a strategic action plan and recommendations for priorities of learning each other's languages, including:
Standards and Assessments
1. Conduct a suitability study of how existing standards and assessments including the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) standards can best be used as an APEC language model, particularly expanding the lower levels to meet the needs of the learners in this region.
Teacher Quality and Instruction
2. Encourage the use of the lesson-study method for strengthening foreign language teachers' skills through on-line demonstrations and videos. Lessons should illustrate well-researched teacher practices and provide insight into how the lesson study process can further improve teacher practice.
Policies and Research
3. Conduct a survey of Member Economies’ policies regarding multilingualism and multiculturalism.
- Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and Systemic Reform are crosscutting topics that support the content priority areas. Effective implementation of ICT and systemic reform are necessary for ensuring a 21st Century education. Technology must be fundamentally integrated into classroom instruction, performance measurement, and accountability systems just as it has been integrated into every other facet of modern life and exerts influence over how we live individually and in social networks.
A key area of concern for many APEC economies is that shifts in labour market demands, opportunities, and demographics may cause a global shortage of qualified teachers at the same time that existing teacher populations need to be retrained in order to effectively teach and use new technologies, as well as impart 21st century skills and competencies. Useful research to the problem of recruiting and retaining high quality teachers includes that of McKinsey & Company (2007), "How the World’s Best-Performing Systems Come Out on Top." This research identified the characteristics common to the world’s best teaching systems, including:
- an average academic caliber of teaching applicants within the top 10 percent of age cohort;
- teaching as one of the top three career choices among university applicants;
- rigorous graduate selection processes, including testing of literacy and numeracy;
- ratios of 1:10 applicants selected to enter teaching degrees; and
- starting salaries in line with other graduate salaries and living standards.
The Ministers released a strategic action plan and recommendations for priorities of information communication technology and systemic reform, including:
Teacher Quality and Instruction
1. Explore opportunities for teacher exchanges among economies.
2. Share innovative approaches to teacher recruitment and professional development, including the use of ICT.
3. Share best practices in teacher incentives such as scholarships, career flexibility, or part-time teaching by professionals in specialist areas.
Policies and Research
4. Share best practices on the development of self-sustaining mechanisms for ICT implementation (e.g. hardware maintenance & avoiding obsolescence).
5. Adopt an open access approach (e.g., Creative Commons licensing) for resource sharing to address intellectual property rights issues.
6. Share successful approaches to overcoming educational disadvantage, particularly the role of targeted programs for early childhood education and ICT.
4th APEC Education Ministers Meeting Presentation Files
| Meeting Outcomes | |
| Remarks by APEC Secretariat | Remarks, APEC Secretariat Executive Director |
|
General Theme: 21st Century Competencies |
Presentation on Key Competencies, New Zealand Recommendations Presentation, Peru and New Zealand |
|
Priority Area A: Mathematics and Science |
Research Presentation, United States Recommendations Presentation, Japan |
|
Priority area B: Career and Technical Education |
Research Presentation, China Recommendations Presentation, Philippines |
|
Priority area C: Language Learning |
Research Presentation, Chinese Taipei Response to Recommendations, Chinese Taipei |
|
Priority area D: ICT and Systemic Reform |
Presentation, Indonesia Presentation, Korea Presentation, Malaysia Presentation, Hong Kong |
