Recognizing the importance of food and nutrition in the total development of school children and adolescents, SEAMEO RECFON and the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Technical Education Development (TED) formalized their collaboration by signing a Memorandum of Understanding during the virtual SEAMEO Centre Directors Meeting on 22 July 2021.
The partnership’s goal is to strengthen the food and nutrition education among technical-vocational schools in Cambodia for the next five years. The specific objectives are to: 1) improve the capacities of teachers in the target technical-vocational high schools to teach food and nutrition education to their students; 2) integrate food and nutrition education in the intra- and extra-curricular activities of the target technical-vocational high schools in line with their respective fields of interest/streams; 3) enhance the capacities of the target schools to implement school-based nutrition promotion activities; and 4) develop the target schools as models/implementers of school-based nutrition promotion in Cambodia.
The two SEAMEO Centres will undertake capacity building, research and knowledge generation, information materials development and exchange, expertise exchange, and monitoring and evaluation to achieve the goal and objectives of the partnership. These activities will be implemented within the context of SEAMEO RECFON’s Nutrition Goes to School (NGTS) Program.
During the signing ceremony, SEAMEO RECFON Director Prof Muchtaruddin Mansyur acknowledged the potential of every SEAMEO Centre to be a partner in implementing food and nutrition education in the region. He thanked SEAMEO TED for responding to this initiative. “This MOU signing symbolizes the spirit of SEAMEO RECFON and SEAMEO TED to implement the NGTS Program and develop better future generations in the region as our Centres’ legacy,” he said.
SEAMEO TED Director Dr Song Heang Ai, on the other hand, expressed his Centre’s commitment to help expand the implementation of SEAMEO RECFON’s NGTS Program to general and technical high schools in Cambodia. “We hope that this cooperation will be beneficial for Cambodian schools and be scaled up throughout the region later,” he added.
The MOU signing was witnessed by representatives from 25 SEAMEO Centres and partner-institutions as well as officials and staff of the SEAMEO Secretariat.