About Us

ASPBAE was founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1964. Its substantive work as a regional network began in 1977, coinciding with the start of ASPBAE’s partnership with DVV International (German Adult Education Association) and its Institute for International Cooperation (IIZ).

A number of international events on adult education in the early 70’s set a solid foundation for ASPBAE’s activities and sense of purpose – the 1972 3rd UNESCO International Conference of Adult Education in Tokyo initiated the formation of the International Council of Adult Education (ICAE) in 1973, with ASPBAE as one of the founding members and its regional arm for the Asia Pacific.

Over the next years, national adult education associations, involving adult education professionals from universities and governments, developed and thrived. ASPBAE’s governance structure was strengthened through annual executive meetings and through information shared through its first newsletter, the ASPBAE Courier.

In the mid-80’s however, the landscape of adult education had changed considerably with the growth and development of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations in the region. Work and thinking on adult education was no longer confined to universities or government education departments. It had thrived in communities and within peoples’ organisations demanding the participation of citizens in decision making. ASPBAE needed to keep up with these profound changes.

ASPBAE convened its first General Assembly from 8-14 December 1991 in Tagaytay, Philippines. It was an assembly of all potential new members of ASPBAE to better root its work in the realities of the region, and to redefine its structure and priorities. ASPBAE has held General Assemblies every four years since then.

In 2008, ASPBAE’s 5th General Assembly agreed a name change to ‘Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education’ while retaining the acronym ‘ASPBAE’. ‘Bureau’ was replaced by ‘Association’ in ASPBAE’s name. ‘Basic education’ was introduced, reflecting the organisation’s support for the broad Education for All (EFA) agenda while maintaining a clear focus and priority to adult education and learning.

On 30 January 2014, ASPBAE commemorated 50 years of work in adult education and learning.

Born from the vision of a small band of passionate adult educators, ASPBAE’s persistence and survival has been due to the dedication of its members and leaders, the main actors in this  journey.

ASPBAE’s beginnings date back to the 2nd UNESCO International Conference on Adult Education held in August 1960 in Montreal, Canada. The Montreal Conference called for greater international and regional cooperation, greater exchange, and greater interaction among researchers and providers of adult education from different countries. Spurred by the call for international outreach, a group of adult education professionals from the Asia Pacific met during the Montreal Conference to explore the possibility of creating a network on adult education in the region. Arnold Hely, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, led these efforts.

Hely mustered the resources to organise a UNESCO seminar to initiate the formation of a regional platform on adult education. ASPBAE’s founding meeting was convened on 30 January 1964 in Sydney, Australia – the most significant outcome of a seminar on ‘The role of schools and universities in adult education’ organised on 18 January to 1st February 1964 at the Women’s College, University of Sydney. The 33 founding members elected Arnold Hely as its first Secretary-General, and Shiva Dutta of India, its first President.

Growing from efforts in the first decade of its existence, ASPBAE’s substantive work as a regional network took stronger shape in 1977, coinciding with the start of ASPBAE’s partnership with DVV International (German Adult Education Association) and its Institute for International Cooperation (IIZ).

A number of international events on adult education in the early 70’s set a solid foundation for ASPBAE’s activities and sense of purpose. Against the backdrop of civil society efforts influencing the 3rd UNESCO International Conference of Adult Education in Tokyo (1972), the International Council of Adult Education (ICAE) was formed in 1973, with ASPBAE as one of the founding members and its regional arm for the Asia Pacific.

In November 1976, the UNESCO General Conference adopted the ‘Recommendation on the development of adult education’ – a key UNESCO instrument on adult education, offering guiding principles and a global approach to promote and develop adult education within member states. The climate was thus ripe for uniting like-minded people from all over the region to come together and interrogate the expanding global discourse that now recognised adult education as a tool for democracy, social justice, and liberation.

Over the next years, national adult education associations, involving adult education professionals from universities and governments, developed and thrived. ASPBAE’s governance structure was also strengthened through annual executive meetings and through information shared through its first newsletter, the ASPBAE Courier. Through the period, ASPBAE increased its work in wider international exchanges and South- South dialogue especially through the ICAE, and played a significant role in forging the adoption of the resolution on the ‘Right to Learn’ during the 4^th UNESCO International Conference on Adult Education in Paris in 1985.

In the mid-80’s however, the landscape of adult education had changed considerably with the growth and development of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations in the region. Work and thinking on adult education was no longer largely confined to universities or government education departments. It had thrived in communities and within peoples’ organisations demanding the participation of citizens in decision making. ASPBAE needed to keep up with these profound changes.

ASPBAE convened its first General Assembly from 8-14 December 1991 in Tagaytay, Philippines which  ushered in strategic shifts in the formation and functioning of the then 27 year old regional association. From an exclusive, one-member-per country structure, ASPBAE shifted to accepting direct membership of individual organisations, thus widening its NGO and civil society base. The General Assembly defined the new directions of the organisation to  better root its efforts in the current realities of the Asia Pacific, and redefined its structure and governance processes better attuned to the nature of its expanded constituency and new areas of work. ASPBAE has convened General Assemblies every four years since then.

Through the 1990’s, ASPBAE actively participated in the various UN global international conferences  (e.g. Earth Summit in 1992, Beijing Women’s Conference 1995, World Summit on Social Development 1995), drawing attention to the critical role of adult education in development. Strengthened by these engagements, ASPBAE threw its energies in joining forces with a global civil society movement seeking to influence the World Education Forum convened in 2000 in Dakar Senegal to secure stronger international commitments to realise the promise of ‘Education for All’.

ASPBAE’s fundamental commitment to work towards ensuring the right of all to learn throughout life (lifelong learning) made ASPBAE a natural participant and an important partner in the ‘education for all’ processes. In its engagements, ASPBAE increasingly realised that to secure gains for adult education, it was necessary to highlight the indivisibility of the ‘education for all’ agenda – that universal quality primary and secondary education cannot be achieved in the absence of safe and enabling learning environments for girls and boys in their homes and communities that literate, critically aware parents can provide. Likewise, the potential for meaningful ‘learning throughout life’ for all people rests on a strong basic education foundation.

In 2008, ASPBAE’s 5th General Assembly agreed a name change to ‘Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education’ while retaining the acronym ‘ASPBAE’. ‘Bureau’ was replaced by ‘Association’ in ASPBAE’s name. ‘Basic education’ was introduced, reflecting the organisation’s support for the broad Education for All (EFA) agenda while maintaining a clear focus and priority to adult education and learning.

On 30 January 2014, ASPBAE commemorated 50 years of work in basic and adult education and learning. Whilst celebrating the milestone moment by showcasing and honouring the valuable education and adult education work of civil society in the Asia Pacific region, through the narrative of ASPBAE’s history, ASPBAE’s 50^th anniversary celebrations offered important arenas for ASPBAE members to gather and jointly plan the ways to powerfully advocate for the right to education and lifelong learning as core elements in the post 2015 education and development agenda.

These – in no small measure – enabled a strong civil society contribution in shaping a new global education agenda. The Education 2030 Framework for Action and Sustainable Development Goal 4 forged in 2015, offer a strong, new ambitious agenda on education being rights-based, humanistic, universal, promoting a lifelong learning framework and offering a strong commitment to equity, inclusion, and quality.

ASPBAE members consist of a wide diversity of NGOs, community organisations, education coalitions, adult education practitioners and campaigners, and researchers and activists.

ASPBAE remains a well-recognised civil society voice in regional and global education policy arenas, articulating the perspectives and concerns of Asia Pacific civil society organisations. ASPBAE has also worked tirelessly to expand opportunities for its members to participate directly in regional and global policy spaces, believing that it is in the collective interest of education rights advocates if strong representative voices from youth, marginalised communities and grassroots campaigners inform regional and global discussions.

ASPBAE has helped strengthen the infrastructure of civil society organisations nationally to advocate the right to education and learning through effective policy advocacy. It has lent capacity support to organisational structures, and mentoring in organising and running policy advocacy campaigns and actions. ASPBAE has since helped build and strengthen national education campaign coalitions in 22 countries in the region.

ASPBAE has also built a strong leadership tradition with an active, much engaged governing body. Members of the ASPBAE Executive Council are drawn from ASPBAE’s 5 sub-regions: South and Central Asia, East Asia, South East Asia, the South Pacific, and Central Asia, and along with the ASPBAE President, are elected once every four years by its General Assembly, electing a leadership body whose composition accounts for geographic and gender-balance.

ASPBAE affirms its fidelity to asserting education and lifelong learning as a human right, and as an indispensable means to exercise other rights to confront the climate crisis, respond to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on education and development, address intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination, build peaceful, just and democratic societies, and confront other developmental challenges at the global, regional, and national levels.

With the multi-dimensional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in potentially reversing gains in achieving the SDGs-SDG4, ASPBAE will consistently raise the urgency of providing support to the full SDG4 targets as key to recovery from the pandemic and equip people, especially marginalised and vulnerable groups, to confront current and future crises and contribute to a more just societal development that values people and helps protect communities from the present and future threats of climate change.

ASPBAE will respond to the threats to the right to education and SDG4 through the following strategic efforts

1. Continue to work closely with members and partners, enabling a strong civil society voice that is grounded on the diversity of contexts and experiences in the Asia Pacific in education policy spaces at national, regional and global levels.
2. Seek to preserve the strong multilateral character of SDG-SDG4 platforms, with governments in the lead as rights duty-bearers; call for greater institutionalised participation of civil society organisations; and challenge efforts that divert education policy-making away from accountable and transparent mechanisms, open to public scrutiny.
3. Strongly call for protection of education budgets, the progressive increase of education financing, with greater attention to domestic resource mobilisation and advance tax justice. Sustain advocacy for increased Official Development Assistance (ODA) to education and critique the role of the private sector in public education systems. Challenge solutions presented to meet the financing gap in education that undermine the right to education.
4. Scale up capacities in gender justice, disability inclusive education, in addressing issues of racism and identity-based discrimination, indigenous education, and the right to self-determination.
5. Continue to assert the importance of youth and adult learning and education (ALE) through advocacy and through support for civil society organisations.
6. Strengthen the participation of diverse youth, especially marginalised youth, and ensure their voices are heard in education policy spaces as well as in the leadership of ASPBAE and its member organisations through youth leadership-building efforts.
7. Expand efforts to promote climate change education being mainstreamed in schools, in youth and adult learning and education (ALE) programmes, and in lifelong learning systems; and likewise expand efforts in education in emergencies (EiE), especially in support of members in high-conflict areas.
8. Align with other social movements to promote and protect education rights such as tax justice movements, the movements promoting freedom from debt and more accountable debt policies, climate justice movements and other sectoral movements such as those representing indigenous/ethnic groups, people with disabilities, students and marginalised women and youth.
9. Continue to offer national and regional level demand-led, context-based capacity building support to national education coalitions and its members.
10. Strengthen its institutional capacities and expand its partnerships to align well in support of its new strategic priorities.