Progressing the Brisbane Communiqué initiative is the responsibility of the multilateral Senior Officials’ Working Group (SOWG) from across the region. The SOWG is currently being chaired by Australia and is supported by the Brisbane Communiqué Taskforce based in the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in Canberra.
Membership on this Working Group is open to any country within the broader Asia-Pacific region. Twelve countries and one multilateral organisation have nominated to be members of the SOWG:
- Australia
- People’s Republic of China
- Japan
- Thailand
- United Arab Emirates
- Oman
- Cambodia
- Bhutan
- Tonga
- Brunei
- New Zealand
- Solomon Islands
- Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation
The role of the SOWG is to develop and implement a work program based on the agreements in the Brisbane Communiqué, leading up to the next Asia-Pacific Education Ministers' Meeting.
Senior Officials’ Working Group Inaugural Meeting
The Working Group met for the first time in Bangkok on 13-14 November 2006. The meeting brought together senior officials from Australia, Bhutan, Brunei, China, Japan, Korea, Oman, New Zealand, Thailand and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation.
At the meeting the senior officials agreed to a number of action items encompassing each of the Brisbane Communiqué goals.
Two areas of common interest dominated: quality assurance and recognition of educational and professional qualifications. There was also considerable interest in working collaboratively on teaching competencies. All realised that reform in the area of recognition of technical and vocational skills was going to be challenging, particularly given that in many countries technical skill matters are primarily the responsibility of labour ministries.
SOWG members were in firm agreement that the Brisbane Communiqué initiative needs to build on existing activities already underway in the broader Asia-Pacific region and stressed the importance of identifying opportunities for collaboration and synergy across organisations and countries.
Three multilateral organisations active in the region, the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation gave presentations about their work to the working group and indicated an interest in participating in Brisbane Communiqué activities.
SOWG members also agreed that sharing quality information on the Brisbane Communiqué goals is a key ingredient to building capacity across the broader Asia-Pacific.
The Working Group agreed that a logical approach to progressing the Brisbane Communiqué would be to:
- Undertake scoping studies under each of the four Brisbane Communiqué themes to ascertain the current situation in the region and to determine where effort needs to be placed for future action;
- Establish expert working groups to progress each of the goals in consultation with all relevant stakeholders including educational institutions; and
- Hold a number of seminars in the region on the priority areas of quality assurance and educational and professional recognition.
The Working Group reported to Ministers in August 2007 and, will report more extensively, at the next Asia-Pacific Education Ministers’ Meeting.