UNESCO Chair

In 2011, the Education University of Hong Kong was awarded a Chair in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Lifelong Learning by UNESCO Paris (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization). This was the first time that UNESCO awarded a Chair in Education to Hong Kong.

(Hon) Professor Rupert Maclean was installed as the inaugural holder of the UNESCO Chair on 12 January 2011, at a signing ceremony held in Hong Kong with the then President of the EdUHK, Professor Anthony Cheung, in the presence of the Directors of UNESCO Bangkok (Mr. Gwang Jo Kim) and UNESCO Beijing (Mr. Abhimanyu Singh) offices. A Statement of Cooperation was also signed between HKIEd and the UNESCO Bangkok and UNESCO Beijing Offices regarding the UNESCO Chair. In January 2015 the UNESCO Chair's initial four your term was completed. The Chair was renewed for a second four year term with Professor Bob Adamson as new UNESCO Chair Professor in TVET and Lifelong Learning.

The Chair helps UNESCO in capacity building and knowledge transfer, with a focus on meeting the needs of under-serviced groups such as women and girls, youth, the elderly, those in rural areas and lower socio-economic groups in Hong Kong, mainland China, the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, and internationally. A series of initiatives related to the Chair have been undertaken. These include creating knowledge-sharing among researchers, policy makers and practitioners; research publications; studies of innovation and best practices for life and work skills; higher degree programmes in relevant areas; educational innovation for development; workshops in Hong Kong, mainland China and elsewhere; and collaborative research projects with partner agencies.

The Chair has links with 40 prestigious universities and international organisations, such as the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the UK, the University of Melbourne in Australia, the UNESCO Offices in Paris, Beijing and Bangkok, and the Zhejiang Technology Institute of Economy and Beijing Normal University Institute of Technology and Vocational Education in China.

To launch the Chair project, the HKIEd hosted an International Symposium on Lifelong Learning on 12 and 13 January 2011. High ranking members of the international education community, including the Directors of the UNESCO offices in Bangkok and Beijing, and the Head of the Education Section of the Asian Development Bank in Manila, together with 50 influential education policymakers, researchers and practitioners, gathered at the HKIEd to explore future directions of research and development in lifelong learning, particularly in relation to poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region.

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