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Education quality remains a major concern among emerging economies and industrialized nations alike. At the same time, the debate surrounding what actually constitutes quality education and learning in the 21st century is ongoing. There is a growing concern that education systems are focusing too much on the accumulation of academic 'cognitive' skills at the expense of the more elusive and hard-to-measure 'nonacademic' skills and competencies. To counter these challenges, many countries and economies in the Asia-Pacific region have introduced, or are in the process of introducing, policy and curriculum changes aimed at enhancing the cultivation of such 'non-academic' skills and competencies in learners. To date, these important reforms in the Asia-Pacific region have not been widely documented, and hence, in 2013 members of the Asia- Pacific Education Research Institutes Network (ERI-Net), hosted by UNESCO Bangkok since 2009, agreed to make this their next topic of investigation. The research aims to document and consolidate reform initiatives for knowledge dissemination and policy consideration to the benefit of countries and economies in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. In phase one, the 2013 ERI-Net research examined how different countries and economies in the region define and apply 'non-academic' skills (often termed 'non-cognitive skills') in their education policies, practices, and curriculum frameworks, and identified emerging trends and challenges. This report synthesizes 10 case studies [Australia, Hong Kong SAR (China), India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Shanghai (China), and Thailand] and includes important information and insights gained from the discussions held during the ERI-Net annual meeting 2013. The objectives of the report are: (i) to capture the movements in the realm of 'non-academic' learning in 10 education systems in the Asia-Pacific region; (ii) to identify possible policy recommendations for promoting and enhancing well-rounded and holistic learning; and (iii) to suggest further stages of investigation.
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