Bulletin Vol. 5 No. 4 Dec 1968

shall deal with ‘‘New Trends in the Social Sciences" . I need not tell you that this area of learning is developing very rapidly. Nor need I remind you there are close relationships between some of the social sciences and the basic sciences, which were the subject of an ASAIHL seminar last summer. Your Board has also determined that the first in the series of seminars on university development should be on the subject of student welfare, a subject of major concern in the universities of every Southeast Asian nation. The seminar on the social sciences will prob ably be held in July or early August and hopefully in Singapore. That on university administration will be held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Administrative Board next December in Hong Kong. Your Board, working closely with Dr. Prachoom, will also implement this year, your decisions first to provide more frequent and com prehensive exchange of information about educa tional developments within the region and elsewhere; second, to form a panel of experts, drawn primarily from Asian institutions, who will be available at nominal fee, to assist our member universities in their development; third, to provide through the Secretariat means whereby two or more institutions can share the costs and services of experts or visiting scholars; and fourth, to provide, also through the Secretariat, assistance for the exchange of professors and students. To these additional services to our member institutions still others will be added as the Secret ariat is strengthened, and as the new Executive Committee gains experience. Our guiding purpose is to assist the universities of this region to fulfil as rapidly as possible their great role as the sources of well-educated men and women and the fountain- heads of knowledge and skill. In order that close relationships may be main tained between the member universities and the Secretariat, that will serve as the central clearing house on the matters I have just discussed, the Administrative Board has authorized the President of ASAIHL to request each president, rector, or vice-chancellor of a university to designate a member of his faculty to serve on a Universities Liaison Committee with which the Secretariat will work. It is planned that with the information supplied by all the member institutions the first issue of the Newsletter will be out by March 1969. Our Association has in the past broken ground in many new fields. Two developments of the past year seem to me, and to my fellow members of the Administrative Board, to be especially significant. The first of these is the formation, under ASAIHL auspices, of a regional council of mathematicians. We may hope that it will lead to other councils in other disciplines. We commend also the im­ portant work that has been done on language problems in Southeast Asian universities and the proposed establishment at the Philippine Normal College of a liaison centre for language research, in response to the challenge of your immediate past President, your new President and the Board will assist the new centre in finding the dollars it needs. Finally, your Board, following your instruc tions, has taken steps to set in motion this year a programme for honouring distinctive performance in our member universities. We are proceeding with our inquiry into how best to constitute an Awards Commission that can proceed with a genuine perception of the meaning of distinction, and that can approach its task with a knowledge of 0 ' universities and without bias. We hope to an nounce the first awards on the occasion of the meeting of the Administrative Board a year from now. As President Romulo said on Thursday, a strong, effective, non-governmental association of universities in Southeast Asia was never more needed than now. The rapid acceleration in the needs and the aspirations of our peoples places ever increasing demands upon our institutions of higher learning. We must grow in strength and quality to keep pace with the new needs and the new hopes. We serve those needs and hopes, and we serve our countries and peoples best, however, when we also serve the great universal commonwealth of learning. We shall exist in Southeast Asia side by side with sister organizations of the region, the new Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization with its several centres of research and training, and the Institute of Higher Education and Develop ment that is about to be born. We shall cooperate closely with them in the common interest of our region. We shall draw upon their research findings and their innovations in training. And we shall place our resources at their disposal, and serve them as reservoirs of knowledge and expertise. In one important respect, we shall be different. For our Association and its member universities do not represent governments. As President Romulo pointed out, we stand apart from politics. That fact has been abundantly apparent in this meeting, and it is indeed one of our greater sources of strength. Because of that strength we can better serve our peoples and our region. — 3 —