MANILA, Philippines — Southeast Asian higher education chiefs adopted three initiatives which the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) said would "guide cooperation on digital transformation, teacher development, research collaboration, and academic mobility.”
The initiatives were unanimously adopted last June 26 during the Ministers' Roundtable on Access and Sustainable Development in Higher Education which the Philippines, the 2026 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) chairman, convened through the CHEd.
The first was the establishment of a "policy framework that promotes equitable access to higher education through AI-enabled learning, ethical AI governance, lifelong learning opportunities, faculty development, and stronger collaboration among higher education institutions."
The second was the Terms of Reference for the Asean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Education and Development.
The third was the Asean GEMS Plus which, the CHEd said, expands the Asean Global Exchange for Mobility and Scholarship "beyond scholarships and student mobility to include regional research grants, researcher mobility, innovation partnerships, and collaborative projects anchored on the Sustainable Development Goals."
