RECSAM 50th Anniversary Coffee Table Book

5 SEAMEO RECSAM – Its Founding Glory 1 SEAMEO RECSAM – Its Founding Glory Capacity Building • Regular Courses • In-Country Courses • Customised Courses • Third Country Training Programme (TCTP)/ Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP) Consultancy work Convenor of Conferences, Congresses, Seminars, Colloquia & Workshops pertaining to Science and Mathematics education Research & Development CORE COMPETENCIES Well, within a year of the inception of SEAMEO, delegates from six SEAMEO countries who attended the Technical Workshop in July 1966 in Kuala Lumpur agreed to establish a regional centre for the improvement of teaching and learning of science and mathematics at the elementary and secondary levels. The educationists concurred on strong regional cooperation in the relevant curricular areas; basedon theperception that establishing a pool of skilled science and mathematics teachers was a high- priority for the region. Penang, the Pearl of the Orient, was chosen as the central location to emplace this regionalCentre. Thisdecision was based on the conviction that such an institution could grow from strength- to-strength, assuredly, in the presence of a teacher-training college in the same campus grounds which also had its focus on science and mathematics education, albeit solely for a national teacher- education programme. Thus, the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Education in Science and Mathematics (SEAMEO RECSAM) was founded with the main objective of helping Member Countries to improve the teaching of