In October 2014, the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education through the SEAMEO Council has issued seven priority areas for SEAMEO to work together to improve the quality of education in Southeast Asia. “Revitalizing Teacher Education” is one of the priority areas in achieving quality education in the region. In order to fulfill this mandate, the SEAMEO Secretariat has embarked on a project titled, “Pre-Service Student Teacher Exchange in Southeast Asia (SEA-Teacher Project)”. The project aims to provide opportunity for pre-service student teachers from universities in Southeast Asia to do their practicum (teaching experiences) in schools in other countries in Southeast Asia.
On 9 October 2015, eleven universities from Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam met and signed an agreement for the exchange of pre-service student teacher, starting the 1st batch in January 2016. The exchange is for student whose major are in math, science, English and pre-school. The duration is for one month and based on the mechanism of cost sharing basis. Students roles and responsibilities are assigned weekly during the one month period. Moreover, the host universities will provide mentors to supervise and monitor the students throughout the practicum period.
