ASPBAE, established in 1964, is a regional association of over 200 member organisations across 30 countries in the Asia South Pacific region. ASPBAE is committed to building an Asia South Pacific network dedicated to advancing equitable access to relevant, quality and empowering education and learning opportunities for all people, especially the most marginalised groups. Its members include NGOs, national education campaign coalitions, community groups, university departments, trade unions, indigenous people’s, women’s organisations and popular education groups promoting the right to education and life-long learning that is transformative and empowering. There are very few CSO networks with the same depth and reach as ASPBAE, in terms of geographic spread, the range of sectors involved, the diversity of perspectives and contexts it represents and the education issues / themes pursued.
Through the years, ASPBAE has offered support and partnership with its member organisations and affiliates in the promotion of adult education that is pro-poor and empowering through:
a) capacity-building of national and grassroots based adult education groups to effectively promote and practice transformative adult education and to advance adult education policy reforms. These have been pursued through regional, sub-regional and national-level trainings, workshops, seminars, research, publications, leadership-building especially of women, study visits / exchanges, training of trainers, mentoring, production of user guides and research support for policy advocacy work. Programs have been geared towards CSO leaders, second line leaders and other key members. These programs and activities have provided our members and other organizations with rare opportunities for learning from the experiences and perspectives of other similarly motivated groups in the region, thus enhancing their own work.
b) network-building and forging strategic partnerships. ASPBAE served as a clearing house of knowledge rooted in very rich and diverse experiences of ASPBAE members, documenting and sharing innovations and good practice, joint planning and coalition-building for solidarity, international cooperation and joint action. For instance, ASPBAE’s ability to sustain the quality of its capacity-building work has been a function of its ability to draw from its network of experts and specialists in diverse fields for example citizenship education, HIV/AIDS education, gender mainstreaming, adult literacy, peace education and indigenous education. In harnessing this pool of experts ASPBAE’s workshops and events have been significantly enhanced and more opportunities for research and training have been opened to members within the region. ASPBAE has developed additional networks and international strategic partners over the past 8 years that has made a significant improvement in ASPBAE’s ability to voice the concerns of its constituency and provide them with capacity building opportunities in international fora.
c) national, regional and international policy advocacy. Over the past 3-5 years, ASPBAE has substantially developed its capacity to undertake policy reviews and policy tracking activities, researches, lobbying, campaigns and representation in various policy processes - enabling education CSOs to not only effectively address local development and education issues but also to lend a strong Southern voice to regional and international policy debates and reform processes on education and adult learning.
In the 1990's, the emphasis of ASPBAE work was on 'capacity and network-building' of adult education NGOs especially in developing countries in the region. ASPBAE's advocacy work was until the last 3 years focused almost solely on adult education issues and on policy platforms and spaces geared more specifically to adult education (such as CONFINTEA V ).
Since the year 2000 however, ASPBAE began to move its strategic emphasis towards policy advocacy that promotes the full range of the Education For All (EFA) goals, with a special focus on adult education concerns. In vast areas of the Asia Pacific region, this implies a continued focus on adult education policy issues albeit as these interact more sharply with other policy areas within basic education (ECCE , Primary, Secondary Education, Adult Literacy). This new emphasis has been prompted by contemporary trends in policy debates in favour of Education for All (EFA 2000) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which pay greater attention to reforms in the formal education systems. To secure gains for adult education within the current policy context, it has been necessary to underscore within a rights perspective, the indivisibility of the 'education for all' (children and adults, men and women) agenda: that universal quality primary and secondary education cannot be achieved in the continued absence of safe, enabling learning environments for girls and boys in their homes and communities that literate, critically-aware parents can provide. Conversely, the potential for meaningful 'learning throughout life' for all citizens rests on a strong basic education foundation. ASPBAE's attention to this expanded policy agenda also coincided with the development and growth within the region of national CSO coalitions for EFA inspired by the emergent global education campaign momentum following the 2000 Dakar Conference on Education for All (EFA) and the 2002 Monterrey Summit on Financing for Development.
ASPBAE has just emerged from its Fifth General Assembly in 2008 signaling another important phase of organizational renewal and consolidation. The Assembly built strong organizational consensus on the far-reaching changes and developments in ASPBAE’s work as it sought to play a more effective and relevant role as one of the most established regional civil society organizations in the Asia Pacific. It set in place a new leadership cognizant of the new phase in ASPBAE’s historical development and capable of providing the guidance and direction required
By 5 December, the membership voted overwhelmingly in favour of a change in name to be more reflective of ASPBAE’s current direction, policies, practices and broader mandate.
ASPBAE will now be known as the Asia South Pacific Association of Basic and Adult Education
[1] Fifth International Conference on Adult Education
[2] For example, Early Childhood Care and Education is crucial not only for the cognitive development of the child, but also in Southern societies (especially among poor households in patriarchal societies) frees the elder sibling, especially girls and mothers from childcare responsibilities and thus enhance girls' ability to stay in schools and mothers to participate in learning activities.
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