LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – Education Secretary Jesli Lapus has cited a Southeast Asian center based here for its significant contributions to human capacity building, especially in agriculture and rural development in the region.
“The existence of SEARCA has in many ways contributed to institutional capacity building in Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines,” Lapuz said, marking the observance of the 42nd anniversary of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) hosted by the Philippine government at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) campus here.
SEARCA was established in 1966 as the first “center of excellence” of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), an intergovernment treaty body founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science and culture.
SEAMEO now has 15 regional centers and the 11 Southeast Asian countries as members: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.
Its highest policymaking body is the SEAMEO Council composed of education ministers and secretaries of the member-countries.
As DepEd Secretary, Lapus represents the Philippines in the SEAMEO.
In his speech read for him by DepEd Undersecretary Manager Boransing, Lapus cited SEARCA’s graduate scholarship program, which has already produced more than a thousand doctoral (PhD) and Master’s (MS) degree holders.
In the program’s initial two decades, the scholars pursued their degrees at UPLBC. Prestigious universities in SEAMEO countries were later included as study posts of the center’s scholars – Kasetsart University in Thailand, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universitas Gadjah Mada and Institut Pertanian Bogor, both in Indonesia.
As of September, the SEARCA scholarship program had produced 1,036 fellows (graduates), 440 of whom had earned their PhD and 596 their MS degrees.
The Philippines is the program’s top beneficiary (144 PhD and 154 MS), followed by Thailand (151 PhD and 120 MS) and Indonesia (100 PhD and 156 MS).
The other fellows are from Vietnam (24 PhD/53 MS), Malaysia (seven PhD/49 MS), Cambodia (four PhD/21 MS), Myanmar (eight PhD/14 MS), Lao PDR (one PhD/14 MS), Timor-Loste (11 MS), Singapore (four MS), and Brunei Darussalam (one PhD).
Lapus noted that many of the SEARCA fellows have assumed leadership roles in various development fields in their respective countries.
Among the most outstanding Filipino graduates was the late Dr. Ricardo Gloria, who had served two Cabinet posts – as Education and Science and Technology Secretary. Gloria was also the first SEARCA fellow to be elected president of the prestigious SEAMEO Council.
Other noted SEARCA graduates are Dr. William Medrano, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) commissioner; Dr. Arsenio Baslisacan, current SEARCA director and UP Diliman professor in Economics and a former Agriculture undersecretary; Dr. Segfredo Serrano, current Agriculture undersecretary; Dr. Cecilia Gascon, president of the Southern Luzon Mindanao (USM); and Dr. Teresa Habito-Stuart of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) based in New York, USA.