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The major analytical research question addressed in this paper is: What are Thailand's strengths and weaknesses as an international education hub for students from the Asian region? The key descriptive research question is: What is the nature of the educational experience of Asian students in Thailand? The two major research methodologies of the study are mixed research methods and comparative case studies, with the use of in-depth interviews of influential experts, surveys, and an autoethnography. In terms of major findings, there has been a dramatic growth of Asian students at Thai universities during the past two decades. Thailand's major advantages relate to low costs, location, quality campus facilities, and a welcoming attitude toward outsiders, while major disadvantages are the quality of many of Thailand's international programs often related to low English language capabilities. The paper concludes by presenting a creative new architecture for thinking about Asian study abroad in Thailand.

This rapid systematic review aims to examine emerging evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on educational institutions and assess the prevalence of e-learning changes in the sector. This paper reviews literature on learning, teaching, and assessment approaches adopted since the COVID-19 outbreak, and assesses the impact on the sector, staff, and students, summarizing findings from peer-reviewed articles. It categorizes these into five key themes: (1) digital learning; (2) e-learning challenges; (3) digital transition to emergency virtual assessment (EVA); (4) psychological impact of COVID-19; and (5) creating collaborative cultures. This represents the first systematic review of COVID-19's impact on education, clarifying current themes being investigated. The author suggests that the term 'emergency virtual assessment' (EVA) is now added for future research discussion. Finally, the paper identifies research gaps, including researching the impact on lesser developed countries, the psychological impact of transition, and the important role of leadership and leadership styles during the transition and handling of the pandemic.

While ChatGPT has recently become very popular, AI has a long history and philosophy. This paper intends to explore the promises and pitfalls of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) AI and potentially future technologies by adopting a speculative methodology. Speculative future narratives with a specific focus on educational contexts are provided in an attempt to identify emerging themes and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century. Affordances of (using) AI in Education (AIEd) and possible adverse effects are identified and discussed which emerge from the narratives. It is argued that now is the best of times to define human vs AI contribution to education because AI can accomplish more and more educational activities that used to be the prerogative of human educators. Therefore, it is imperative to rethink the respective roles of technology and human educators in education with a future-oriented mindset.

Governance and regulation of the use of live animals in research and teaching is examined in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, Japan and India. A comparison of the systems in different countries will enable the determination of best practice and fit-forpurpose regulation. The most comprehensive government regulation of animal welfare in institutions covers a broad range of animals and institutions are required to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, whose membership is specified in guidelines or regulations. The work of the Committees is rigorously overseen by government and facilities that use live animals are audited externally. All countries examined have legislation governing the use of live animals in research, although only Australia and Malaysia have a fully equivalent mandated oversight of teaching. Teaching that uses live animals is partly covered in the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Thailand This paper thus aims to review the regulation of animal use in different Asian jurisdictions in order to determine best practices that are appropriate to those settings. The most comprehensive oversight is provided in Australia and Malaysia that essentially use the same regulatory framework.

This paper seeks to identify the teaching strategies used in Grade 4 Culture and Heritage lessons in a Chinese-Filipino School. Further, it is important to effectively address these with constructivist-based teaching strategies to help maximize the learning experience. This study used qualitative method where Ethnographic research design and Descriptive method were used to conduct classroom observations. The instruments used to obtain the results were patterned and modified from Craig Kissock's (1981) Curriculum Planning for Social Studies Teaching: A Cross-cultural Approach, a self-made Teachers' Self-evaluation form and Peer Observation form participated by nine teachers of a Chinese-Filipino School in Quezon City, Philippines. The analysis of the results identified five teaching strategies with Discussion and Lecture strategy as the most applied alongside Game strategy, Question and Answer strategy, and Project method. Other activities that strengthened the Culture and Heritage awareness were integrated through a collaborative effort with other subject areas. As a result, the study supported that Social Development theory affects the teaching-learning process where opportunities for social interaction helps in the development of a child. Using various teaching strategies encouraged students to interact with one another, to freely express their thoughts, and to participate in fun and healthy competition. It also encouraged students to think and to unleash their creativity and imagination. At the same time, the use of tools and other resources helped increase student engagement.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

The aim of this study was to determine the examination of the researches about the use of technology by fine arts teachers. The study was conducted according to the content and citation analysis model. In this context, Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection indexes were included. In the document scanning in the WOS environment, the keywords 'Fine arts', 'Teachers' and 'Technology' were searched. In total, 169 documents were examined and analysed one by one. They were analysed according to year, document type, WOS content category, country, source title, organisation and citation, authors, publication language and categories. As a result of this research, the first study was conducted in 2004, while the most studies were conducted in 2016. It was concluded that the published studies had the most Proceedings papers as the document type. The area where the studies of fine arts teachers on the use of technology are mostly carried out is Education Educational Research, according to the Web of Science content category. The most researched title in the distribution according to the Source Title field is 'International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conferences on Social Sciences and Arts.' The university with the most studies is Kazan Federal University. The 19 authors who conducted the studies have a large number of studies in this field. It was concluded that other authors had only one study in the field. Again, when we look at the distribution of the countries and documents according to the language of writing, the country with the most studies is China and the language of the documents is English. The area continues to evolve.

For those receiving funding from the UK HEFCE-funded Open Educational Resource Programme (2009-2012), the sustainability of project outputs was one of a number of essential goals. Our approach for the hosting and distribution of health and life science open educational resources (OER) was based on the utilisation of the WordPress.org blogging platform and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to curate content and widen discovery. This paper outlines the approaches taken and tools used at the time, and reflects upon the effectiveness of web strategies several years post-funding. The paper concludes that using WordPress.org as a platform for sharing and curating OER, and the adoption of a pragmatic approach to SEO, offers cheap and simple ways for small-scale open education projects to be effective and sustainable.

Though vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) have drawn continuous attention in SLA research in the past three decades, there remain many unanswered questions, many unknown caveats and many unexplored regions. Quite a few historical reviews of vocabulary learning strategies have been undertaken by researchers over the past years, tracing its growth over the years. However, no research until now has captured the VLS profile of learners from diverse ESL/EFL backgrounds and presented an analysis from a geographical point of view. This study aims to capture the VLS profile of the diverse learners and takes up the task of the geographical review of vocabulary learning strategies landscaping the VLS research over many countries. For this purpose, the researcher has chosen specifically the research happening in the backdrop of ESL/EFL contexts. Fourteen papers have been selected for review belonging to Philippine, Turkey, Algeria, Iran, Malaysia, Congo, China, India, Sudan, Libya and The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A detailed analysis reveals not only the juggling between the experiential and traditional modes of vocabulary learning but also the reasons behind the insufficient vocabulary size of the learners in myriad contexts.

This study examined a cross-cultural perspective on how the top popular press in the Philippines and China portray an evaluative stance as regards the current South China Sea tensions. It set out to reveal the news writers' positions through examining Martin and White's (2005) appraisal framework particularly the attitude category. The analysis of the media reports from the two countries culled from a three-year period (January 2013-December 2016) focused on how the news writers construed their attitudinal judgment and positions. Findings reveal that the high occurrences of appreciation resources in both corpora provide subtle or indirect expressions of behavioral judgment in the course of journalistic writing where conventions relating to objectivity are necessary. Even if dominated by appreciation evaluative language that construes value of phenomenon relating to aspects of the disputes, affect (manifesting emotions) and judgment (relating to behavior) evaluative resources are employed to reflect or represent the socio-cultural and political contexts, government policy and even capture the local sentiment in which the news reports are written. As regards the difference between the two, the Chinese news reports lean towards a more diplomatic stance through the noteworthy use of evaluative affect and appreciation resources that underscore enhancement of relationship, partnership and accord while the Philippine news reports are more inclined to express implied negative subjective attitudinal stance on the issue. This paper set out the significance of language in framing positions, sentiments, opinions and policies in which meanings are construed in news reports. Examining media discourse from the lens of the appraisal system or evaluative language underscores how subjectivity occurs where beliefs, notions and values in a society are generated.

Learning analytics is a domain that has been constantly evolving throughout recent years due to the acknowledgement of its importance by those using intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning [1]. Learning analytics may be applied in a variety of different cases, but their role in understanding the multilingual requirements of users of learning portals is of an outstanding significance. As the adaptation of existing portals in multilingual environments is a cost- and time-consuming aspect of the development of a portal, the outcomes of learning analytics may provide the requirements on which further multilingual services of a portal will be built, ensuring their efficiency. This paper aims to identify and interpret the behavior of users from developing countries in a multilingual learning portal using the log files of the portal by applying the methodology defined in a previous work by Stoitsis et al. [2] The paper also aims to identify the aspects that should be studied by future related works by focusing on specific regions and countries that exhibit special interest for further adaptation of the portal to additional multilingual environments.

Purpose: It is still unclear how Asian universities incorporate the theory or practice of sustainable development (SD) in their research and education programmes. To address this gap, the purpose of this paper is to report on a study that has examined how universities in Asian countries handle and address matters related to SD. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a bibliometric analysis and an online survey-method. The online survey data were analysed through descriptive analysis and one-sample student's "t"-test. Findings: The study indicates that there is considerable variation among the Asian countries regarding sustainability practices in higher education institutions (HEIs). The HEIs in far eastern countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are perceived to demonstrate more sustainability practices. Research limitations/implications: Even though a substantial number of participants participated in the survey, it did not cover all Asian countries. The online survey was carried out over a limited period of time, and not all HEIs in the field may have received information about the study. Practical implications: Asia is the largest continent facing a number of sustainability challenges. In this context, the contribution of HEIs is very important. The findings of the current study may serve as a baseline for Asian HEIs to take more initiatives towards SD goals, as HEIs are responsible for the education and training of hundreds of thousands of students who will be occupying key positions in industry, government or education in the coming years. Originality/value: The study contributes to the existing literature in two distinct ways. First, it was possible to develop a comprehensive instrument to measure sustainability practices in HEIs. Second, this study has filled the gap of the scarcity of studies regarding sustainability practices in HEIs in Asia.

Like all organisations, good governance is a fundamental requirement for the responsible and accountable management of universities in general and open universities in particular. This is to ensure that these (open) universities remain relevant to their mission of facilitating unfettered access to higher education for citizens and at the same time continue being reliable contributors to personal and institutional developments, the vital ingredients to maintaining sustained national development. While several studies have, in the past, been conducted on governance of universities, almost all of them have centred around conventional, face-to-face institutions. Not much published literature is in evidence on the governance of Open Universities. This paper, drawing from a study on the governance of a few open universities in Asia, tries to discuss the nature of their challenges, and the lessons that can be drawn from their practices and experience. The study focused on aspects relating to institutional autonomies such as curriculum, budgeting and financial management, admission standards, conferment of qualifications, academic staff appointments, development and promotions and research policies. Our findings indicate that, similar to conventional systems, the state plays a crucial role in many aspects of governance both in publicly funded and privately supported institutions. Recent attempts at governance transformation towards greater institutional autonomies is beginning to show limited changes in some but not all jurisdictions studied.

Using a team-based course development approach, the University of British Columbia collaborated with the Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet) and universities from Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Canada to design and develop six transnational, online, distance-education courses covering diverse topics such as sustainable forest policy, international dialogues in global forestry issues and forest restoration. The team-based approach is commonly used in online course development to form a cost-effective managerial and development team that manages timelines, coordinates solutions, and oversees budgets, all of which are particularly challenging for an international collaboration among universities across the Asia-Pacific region, due to cultural differences and variations in teaching and learning practices. This paper gives an overview of the design and development of transnational, online, distance-education courses, and the results of a pilot study that put the completed courses through an in-house, evidence-based quality enhancement rubric and a written survey reporting the leading professors' satisfaction with the project management and instructional design services. The quality enhancement rubric showed that the course designs were of high quality and the written survey revealed that the subject matter experts were satisfied overall. However, many improvements were suggested and could be implemented to improve the quality of course design, and the collaboration in orientating subject matter experts to the team-based development process, and in implementing best practices for online course design.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, socio-economic inequalities have become exacerbated and COVID-19 related hate crimes have increased. This paper explores how citizenship education might be reimagined in response to this context, with the vision of rebuilding a more equitable and compassionate society. By using a collective autobiographical writing approach, this study documented six different autobiographical reflexivities of citizenship education scholars who were from different parts of the world: China, South Korea, the Philippines, the United States, Nepal and the United Kingdom. It also observed the way the pandemic played out in the location where they were situated during the research as well as how it played out in their countries of origin, and further, how it affected the civic development in each context. The scholars' range of autobiographical expressions resulted in insights for developing a type of citizenship education, namely, education for active and compassionate citizenship.

How much is hegemony and how much is self-determination in the higher education systems in Southeast Asia? This paper argues that while the question of centre and periphery is still relevant to the analysis of international university systems, the analytical frameworks from which it has arisen may lose viability in the long term. Southeast Asian states are making use of higher education to act in ways that will contribute to the altering of their peripheral position in the global economic and political system. While changes in Southeast Asian higher education are closely tied to global markets and follow what sometimes appears to be a dependent pattern of adaptations driven by Western developed economies, the paper argues that there is also a significant amount of resistance. As Southeast Asian countries adapt in ways that help embed economic globalisation within their national landscape, the manner in which the adaptation occurs is more selective, open, and democratic than before. Moreover, while global communication with core (centre) university systems has been more open and transparent, the system is closed to direct intervention from the outside, making hegemony a less plausible explanation for the manner in which the system is reacting within the new global environment of financial interdependency.

It is not unusual to find that employers operating in low-pay sectors are reluctant to provide vocational training. Frequently they fear benefitting competitors as better-skilled employees command a more competitive position in the labour market and may choose to leave one employer and take their newly acquired skills elsewhere. However, in contrast the expectation might reasonably be that employers in more skilled sectors would be more enthusiastic about such training particularly when the financial, environmental and human costs, of errors are high. This paper therefore analyses vocational training provision in the more skilled sector of professional seafaring. In this sector, accidents may cause massive environmental damage and loss of life, and may incur substantial fines and financial penalties. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, the paper focuses upon the adequacy of the training that is provided to seafarer officers in relation to the introduction of new technology aboard their vessels.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the holistic picture of sustainability curricula in Asian higher education. Design/methodology/approach: Content analysis was conducted based on Asian management education for sustainability in higher education. Online courses arrangement, teaching methods, instructors' educational background and cross-referencing data between triple bottom line and sustainability courses have been investigated. Findings: The paper provides empirical insights about the current state of sustainability education in Asia. The results show that there is an opportunity for interdisciplinary integration, as there are imbalanced sustainability courses offered by business, science and engineering schools. It also suggests that Asian universities should add an international connection and active promotion of sustainability education on their Web sites. Research limitations/implications: Findings are based on web-based sustainability-related courses. Future research could apply method of case study to do a deeper study. Practical implications: The paper provides an overview of Asian management education for sustainability and curricula analysis through our research, and that this will further assist in the development of interdisciplinary integration in Asian management education for sustainability. Originality/value: This paper is the first attempt to gain better understanding of sustainability-related courses offered in leading business/management colleges in Asia.

Drawing on data gathered from British Council seminars in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai on "Absent Talent: Women in Research and Academic Leadership" (2012-2013), this paper discusses academic women's experiences and explanations for women's under-representation as knowledge leaders and producers in the global academy. Participants from South and East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Australasia and Europe shared experiences and identified desires for future action in the form of a "Manifesto for Change." The paper combines empirical data on enablers, impediments and attractions with consideration of debates on women's exclusions and disqualifications from academic leadership and knowledge production. A key question is whether women are desiring, dismissing or being disqualified from senior leadership positions in the global academy.

In contrast to a burgeoning research literature on the role of emotions in learning and instruction in Western culture, research on how emotions impact student and teacher development in Asian countries is lacking. The present paper reviews seven publications included in the 2019 Special Issue of The Asia--Pacific Education Researcher examining the role of emotions in Asian learners and in Asian educators. Three studies conducted with Asian students across education levels (primary, secondary, post-secondary) and countries (China, Singapore) explored students' emotions ranging from global constructs (engagement, satisfaction) to discrete experiences (hope, gratitude) in relation to personality, self-regulation, persistence, and contextual variables (perfectionism, self-compassion, resilience, relatedness). Four studies additionally investigated the emotional experiences of pre-service and practicing Asian teachers (China, Hong Kong, Philippines) in relation to varied motivational variables (self-efficacy, self-theories, passion, psychological capital), social-environmental factors (cooperative interactions, practicum evaluations), as well as psychological and physical health (coping styles, burnout, sleep quality). Study findings and protocols are discussed with respect to specific directions for future research on academic emotions in an Asian educational context.

The paper examines if there has been an increase in the attention paid to social and environmental issues (SEI) in accounting curricula. Using schools participating in the Aspen Institute's Beyond Grey Pinstripes (BGP) program, we measure the increase in the number of accounting courses incorporating SEI across the biennial application years of 2005, 2007 and 2009. We also examine the percentage of SEI coverage in accounting courses between 2007 and 2009. Our findings suggest that there was not an appreciable increase in the number of accounting courses dealing with SEI between 2005 and 2007, but that the increase was significant during the period from 2007 to 2009. Further, the increase over the four-year period from 2005 to 2009 was also significant. In addition, there is a significant increase in the percentage of SEI coverage in accounting courses between 2007 and 2009. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an exploratory survey as part of a presentation for the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference. It seeks to understand how library institutions in the South East Asia (SEA) region have implemented Web 2.0 technologies--blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, or the use of services like Flickr, YouTube, de.lici.ous. Design/methodology/approach: Libraries surveyed were in: Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, People's Republic of China, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan. The survey relied on references in published papers, internet searches and personal contacts. Findings: The survey found that more academic libraries than public libraries were using Web 2.0. technologies. Blogs and RSS feeds were the most common. Blogs were used mainly as web publishing tools rather than as a means to engage library users. Research limitations/implications: The survey is not comprehensive. The search relied mainly on English publications and keywords, while the native language of most countries surveyed was non-English. Future research could comprehensively cover each country, by the type of library or language. Practical implications: The paper contends that Web 2.0 does not rely on technology, but more on practice and participation. The emphasis should be on relationships rather than transactions. Suggestions are offered on how libraries can adopt a Library 2.0 mindset without focusing on technology. A call is made to establish an East Asian Librarians 2.0 directory. Originality/value: The paper offers a non-technological perspective to institutions and practising professionals who are reviewing their Web 2.0 implementation.

Numerous studies have been published heralding the benefits of physical education in school education. Sport and physical activities form the major content in learning and the arrangement serves as the major source of development in students. This paper identifies "quality" as an internationally concerned issue and within the concept, the perceptual framework in learning is then placed with focus. To conduct this study, a sample of N = 799 ("11 Asian cities") physical education professionals working in different levels were invited to participate in a questionnaire survey with 37 items designed to forge the conceptualization of quality learning in physical education. Results from statistical analysis showed 24 items grouped in 3 subfactors being retained after EFA, of 37 items that were framed through content analysis to assess the quality physical education learning among the PE professionals. The retained three factors from the EFA were further assessed with robust confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The 3-factor model demonstrated a good fit with the data (CMIN/DF = 7.367, NFI = 0.888, CFI = 0.901, PCFI = 0.748, RMSEA = 0.089). In this sample, the QPEL demonstrated an acceptable three-factor structure, internal consistency and inter-factor correlation. These items were appropriate to provide the necessary understanding of the diversified practice in the learning of quality physical education.

Introduction: In this paper, Spanish future primary teachers' pedagogical knowledge of numbers and operation, as revealed through their results in the TEDS-M ("Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics"), is compared with that of two other groups. The first group are the future primary teachers of other OECD countries that also participated in the study: Norway, Germany, Chile and Poland. The second group are the future primary teachers of participating countries where preservice teachers receive training similar to Spain's teacher training, namely, China-Taipei, Singapore, United States, Philippines and Switzerland. Method: To meet this objective, data was analyzed and parameters were calculated based on categories that characterize the pedagogical knowledge required to correctly answer the questions in this conceptual domain, using response assessment criteria. Results: We found that Spanish prospective teachers have lower results, in general, than those of the other OECD countries and of countries in the group with similar training programs. The Spanish scores are lower than Norwegian, Swiss and Singaporean scores in all aspects considered. For most categories, Spain obtained higher scores than Philippines and Chile, and similar scores to the U.S.A. Discussion: When comparing the results from the OECD countries that participated in the two international studies, TEDS-M and TIMSS 2011 (Spain, Poland, USA, Norway, Germany and Chile), we find that their relative positions are maintained in the ranking of assessed mathematical knowledge of numbers and operations, whether in preservice teachers or in primary students. Spanish results in the TIMSS are just above Poland and Chile and below the rest. The results obtained in this study may be useful in the current syllabus design process for subjects in the Elementary Teacher Education degree.

The UNESCO-UNICEF joint regional policy review project was launched in September 2006 with the aim to support the countries of Asia-Pacific region in meeting the first goal of Education For All (EFA) on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) by identifying, documenting and sharing good practices as well as constraints and challenges in early childhood policy development and implementation. To this joint call for a policy review initiative, nine countries of the Asia-Pacific region responded, namely, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Viet Nam. The specific project goals were: (1) To support national governments in developing and implementing policies related to young children and their families; (2) To build national capacities in preparing policies that support the development, delivery and access to quality, early childhood services and provisions; (3) To develop knowledge about policy and identify a resource base to function as reference for policy makers, including justification and foundation for early childhood (in their countries); and (4) To share experiences and perspectives in policy development and implementation within and among countries on early childhood services/provisions. This paper describes the policy review process and recommendations on how similar policy reviews can be carried out in other countries/regions. (Contains 1 footnote.)

This paper analyses how countries in UNICEF's East Asia and Pacific Region (EAPR) have engaged in the Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS) process. ELDS has been developed by the governments of Cambodia, China, Fiji, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam over the last 3 years with technical and financial support from UNICEF. The ELDS process allowed each country to define its own domain framework, using terminology and defining dimensions and domains in ways that reflected national perspectives and culture while ensuring holistic child development. No two national frameworks are exactly the same, yet they all include aspects of physical development, socio-emotional development, cognitive development and language development. Moral-spiritual and cultural development, creativity and approaches towards learning were also included by some countries. Regarding the purpose and objectives for undertaking the ELDS process, there were also commonalities and differences between countries. ELDS is being applied as the basis for curriculum revision, for instructional improvement and teacher training, for programme evaluation, for parenting education, for public advocacy and for national alignment of standards. Lessons learned in terms of factors for success include the need for conceptual clarity on holistic child development and ELDS processes amongst key stakeholders and decision makers from the outset, the necessity of national leadership and shared stakeholder responsibility, and the importance of technical assistance, follow-up and exchange between countries. Looking to the future, recommendations are made to use advanced countries to support countries just starting the process, to hold a follow-up regional workshop on application and use of ELDS, to develop publications, studies and reports on using ELDS in Asian countries, and to develop a more standardized Asian ELDS model based on validated indicators from the region, to allow countries to use Asian validated standards for specific purposes or research. (Contains 3 tables and 1 footnote.)