Planning and Information Hub Development Meeting
Bangkok, Thailand
9-10 February 2011
The Planning and Information Hub Development Meeting gathered representatives of the existing and prospective UNESCO Arts in Education Observatories from the Asia-Pacific region to discuss the implementation of activities under the UNESCO Arts in Education programme. The primary issues discussed among the participants were the future activities of the network and the online resources of the network. Another goal of the meeting was the review of the “Asia-Pacific Action Plan” which detailed UNESCO's strategy regarding the development of Arts Education Observatories in the Asia-Pacific region.
This meeting was organized by UNESCO Bangkok and gathered existing observatories (from Australia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Singapore) with the participation of two prospective observatories to be set up in Hong Kong and Thailand. During the 2-day meeting, the overall organizational structure and operational principles of the network of Arts in Education Observatories, as well as the activities and research agenda of the network were discussed. Revisions to the “Asia-Pacific Action Plan” were envisaged and amendments to the documents were suggested. These included revision on the structure of the network, monitoring and reporting process of the work of the observatories, and role of its members among other modifications.
The meeting also discussed the feedbacks collected of the first round of users testing of the KACES online Arts Education information hub. Further recommendations were made with regards to the improvement of functionalities of the website and its overall structure. Links with the observatories’ various other websites, the place of the online Arts Education information hub as a central node of the network was also discussed.