Page 145 - The Ethics of ASEAN

How ASEAN’s ethical future could fail

• As for education, the World Bank notes that despite ASEAN’s progress
in increased schooling, education quality is unequal and generates large
learning gaps with 21% of children leaving primary school with low reading
comprehension skills.
• A third is access to health where the World Bank estimates that 15% of 15-year-
olds living today will not reach the age of 60.
What other trends put ASEAN human development ethics at risk? Much of it is captured in
one key indicator, rising inequality.
Inequality is not limited to ASEAN’s poor Member States, it is a major challenge also
for rich ASEAN countries. In a 2023 speech Singapore President Halimah Yacob stated that
avoiding entrenched structural inequality is now a top government priority.
9

While meritocracy has long been the ‘organising principle’
of Singapore society, the Government needs to rethink
its approach to education and work so that advantages
and privileges do not become entrenched and persist over
generations.

ASEAN human development is at risk if wealth continues to concentrate at the top and
remain in the hands of the very rich, a phenomenon in all regions except Europe. 10
ASEAN institutions are fortunately more oriented to shared human development
for all. For example, ASEAN institutions agree that access to high quality education
should be a shared public good and should not be a driver of inequality as has been the
case for American higher education. In 2019 the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education
11
Organization (SEAMEO) worked with the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human
Rights (AICHR) to declare higher education a human right in order to support economically
and socially marginalized adults and children to lift themselves out of poverty and
participate fully in their communities.
12
Declaring something a right does not automatically make it a reality. Nor does access
to higher education guarantee quality education. The document therefore makes concrete
human development recommendations such as funding students with financial need and
setting quotas for students with disabilities, ethnic minorities and immigrants.

9 Website of the President of the Republic of Singapore, Speech by President Halimah Yacob at the Institute
of Policy Studies 35th Anniversay Gala Dinner https://www.istana.gov.sg/Newsroom/Speeches/2023/06/26/
Speech-by-President-Halimah-Yacob-at-the-Institute-of-Policy-Studies retrieved 29 July 2023
10 “Why inequality is growing in the US and around the world” by Fatema Z. Sumar, Executive Director of the Center
for International Development, Harvard Kennedy School, published in The Conversation 1 November 2022
https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642 retrieved 29
July 2023
11 “Cost of College Over Time: Rising Tuition Statistics” by Jessica Bryant 12 January 2023 on the Best Colleges
Website https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-costs-over-time/#:~:text=The%20total%20
cost%20of%20a,2020%2C%20it%20was%20almost%20%2426%2C000.&text=Across%20all%20types%20
of%20schools,times%2C%20between%201963%20and%202020. Retrieved 30 July 2023
12 Thematic Study on Right to Education: Promoting of Access to Tertiary Education in ASEAN prepared by
SEAMEO Regional Centre for Community Education Development Vientiane, August 2019 https://aichr.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/08/ASEAN-Thematic-Study-Report-on-the-Right-to-Tertiary-Education_Final_020819.
pdf retrieved 29 July 2023

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