On March 22, 2024, the first Asia-Pacific Education Innovation Development Report — compiled over two years by the Hongwen Education Research and Development Center (HERDC) — was officially released in Hong Kong. This marks a major breakthrough for HCADS in academic publishing and a significant academic achievement in Asia-Pacific education research.

The launch event was held in Central, Hong Kong, attended by nearly 100 education researchers, policy makers, and media representatives from 8 countries and regions. In his remarks, the HCADS Council Chairperson stated that the report represents the culmination of the Society's academic accumulation over its first five years and an important step for HERDC in moving from project management toward academic publishing.

Report Overview

The Asia-Pacific Education Innovation Development Report spans over 300,000 Chinese characters, providing a comprehensive analysis of educational innovation practices across 15 countries and regions. It covers five major thematic areas: basic education reform, higher education development, teacher professional growth, educational technology application, and cultural diversity in education. Drawing on the outcomes of over 150 projects managed by HERDC over five years, combined with first-hand research data contributed by the Society's membership network, the report presents a systematic examination of the current state, trends, and challenges of educational innovation in the Asia-Pacific.

Key Findings

The report identifies the following trends in Asia-Pacific educational innovation:

First, student-centred teaching philosophy is shifting from rhetoric to institutional arrangement. A growing number of countries and regions are beginning to drive pedagogical paradigm transformation across multiple dimensions including curriculum standards, teaching assessment, and teacher training. Through comparative analysis, the report found that countries and regions that systematically advance student-centred teaching reform at the institutional level show markedly better educational innovation outcomes than those that merely advocate change at the conceptual level.

Second, traditional culture education is undergoing a repositioning from the periphery to the core. Multiple Asia-Pacific countries and regions have begun incorporating cultural heritage into their core curriculum frameworks. The report analyses the policy evolution of traditional culture education in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries, finding that the elevated status of cultural education is closely linked to the importance these countries place on cultural soft power.

Third, educational technology application is deepening from the tool level to the instructional design level. Mere digital transformation is gradually evolving toward the construction of smart education ecosystems. The report notes that simply migrating traditional teaching content onto digital platforms does not constitute genuine educational innovation; truly effective educational technology application requires redesigning teaching processes, assessment methods, and teacher-student interaction models.

Compilation Process

The report's Chief Editor and HERDC Director presented the compilation process at the launch. The report was initiated in 2022, co-authored by 35 researchers from 10 countries and regions, and finalized after two rounds of peer review and three editorial board reviews. During the research process, the compilation team conducted field investigations across 15 countries and regions, collecting extensive first-hand data and materials.

The compilation fully leveraged the Society's transnational academic network. Researchers from various countries not only contributed national research data and case analyses but also participated in designing the framework for cross-national comparative studies and interpreting the data. This collaborative research model ensured the report's international perspective and the depth of its comparative analysis.

Academic Reception

Attending scholars offered positive assessments of the report. Commentators noted that the report fills a gap in the absence of a comprehensive report on educational innovation development in the Asia-Pacific, and that its cross-national comparative perspective and solid data foundation give it high academic reference value and policy advisory value.

Education researchers from various countries remarked that the comparative analysis in the report helped them understand their own countries' educational innovation positioning and direction from a more macro perspective. An education policy researcher from Southeast Asia noted that the report is particularly valuable for education policy makers in developing countries, as it provides educational innovation experiences from countries at different development stages within the same region.

Future Plans

The Society announced that the Asia-Pacific Education Innovation Development Report will become a regular academic publication, with plans to release updated editions every two years, continuously tracking the development trajectory of educational innovation in the Asia-Pacific. The electronic version will be freely available to all Society members, while print copies can be ordered through the Society's official website.

The HERDC Director stated that the successful release of the first report lays the foundation for the Center's future academic publishing work. Building on this, the Center plans to successively launch thematic research reports on cultural heritage, arts education, and other areas, further enriching the Society's body of academic outputs.