On 28 - 30 November 2022, the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education (SEAMEO) Secretariat held its 45th annual High Officials Meeting (HOM), SEAMEO Regional Centre for STEM Education (SEAMEO STEM-ED) Centre Director Dr. Kritsachai Somsaman shared his determination developing educational materials and programs in Space Education, Smart Agriculture, Computer Science, and Robotics ─ to meet the demand for a skilled workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

SEAMEO HOM is an annual event participated by high officials (such as the Secretary-General and Director General of the Ministries of Education of the 11 SEAMEO Member Countries) ─ where they discussed directions of SEAMEO for the incoming year ─ as well as approved an overall plan and programmes of the SEAMEO Regional Centre. This year, the meeting saw its first onsite event at Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Bangkok, Thailand since Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) struck in 2019.

Dr. Kritsachai Somsaman, SEAMEO STEM-ED Centre Director presented a five-year development plan consisting of developing stem quality schools; strengthening learner’s motivation, aspiration, and experience for STEM careers; developing and promoting effective STEM learning resources and related educational tools and platforms; strengthening capacities of teachers and educational personnel; and advocate evidence-based policies and build political commitments using What Works in STEM education.

During the networking session, the STEM-ED team had a chance to discuss future collaboration with various SEAMEO Partners and shared our determination to develop educational materials and programs in hard sciences (space education, smart agriculture, computer science, and robotics) to boost national and regional competitiveness as preparation for Industry 4.0.

As a part of the event, different SEAMEO Centres were given an opportunity to share their latest innovations with participants, in this matter, SEAMEO STEM-ED displayed the “Power Up” kit ─ a recently developed learning resource designed to assist students with fundamentals of electricity. The kit was designed to utilize simplistic materials such as cardboard boxes, bolts, a light bulb, copper, and metal which could be combined as a circuit to power up a light bulb.