Director

This report highlights momentum of success and achievements of SEAMEO TED for fiscal year 2019/2020. A new trend transforms education from the traditional stream, called general education, to technical education stream to cater for school-to-work approach. To be productive right after, technical education at secondary education level plagues the region in a recent decade. This trend was originated from Germany,​that has been implemented successfully as a dual system for secondary education level. This successful system was spread out to Japan, South Korea, China, etc. to meet the labor market needs.

Nowadays we live in a new era of Industry 4.0 enabling people to catch up with technology in order to survive and transform our daily lives. For example, internet of things, artificial intelligent, big data, industrial robotics, digital technology, 3D printing, and bio-chemical innovation are the things that people have to be aware of in terms of manufacturing and massive production. Most things will be done remotely to save time and workforce. In this regard, technical education plays an integral part in supporting people in up-skilling and communicating with robots. Technical education can make some jobs disappear and some other jobs emerge resulted from Industry 5.0. The connection between human and machine is so highly technological advancement.

I hope that the progress of SEAMEO TED can contribute to the advancement and betterment of technology, particularly for students. Finally, the school-to-work system for technical education will be plagued the region transforming youth to become a productive citizen at all costs.