| Greetings from the ICT in Education team, with our last e-newsletter issue of the year! With this special holiday edition we wish to acknowledge all of our dedicated readers for your support, feedback, input, and interest. We especially wish to thank our donors and partners, including Korean Funds-in-Trust, Malaysia Funds-in-Trust, UNICEF, SEAMEO INNOTECH, South China Normal University, Korea Education & Research Information Services (KERIS), YTN, ASEAN Cyber University (ACU), Chung-Dahm Learning, Inc., and Blackboard, as well as Ministries of Education of multiple Member States, whose generous support and cooperation have been instrumental in helping us achieve our goals. This newsletter will highlight some of the accomplishments that we have achieved over the year thanks to your support. We hope you enjoy reading through this edition! Happy end of the year to you all! Looking Back at 2015 and Forward to 2030 As the year 2015 marked a catalysing milestone and deadline in the achievement of Education for All (EFA) goals, launched in 2000, this year has been witness to much progress across the world with the evident efforts of governments, civil society and the international community. Today, we can say that the number of out-of-school children and adolescents has decreased by almost a half since 2000. Gender parity and enrolment rates have also enjoyed rapid progress with an estimated 34 million more children attending schools: in 2012, the world witnessed a two-third increase in pre-primary education enrollment, while it is estimated that primary school enrolment ratio will reach 93% in 2015. Moreover, severe gender disparity has been much better addressed: in 13 years, the 33 countries with fewer than 90 girls enrolled in primary education (for every 100 boys) decreased to 16. Governments have made commendable strides in focusing on learning outcomes through assessments to ensure that not only access to, but the quality of education is provided and sustained.[1] EFA has also brought forward the unfinished tasks the global community has yet to reach. Access to, quality of, and equity in education remain as grand targets that are yet to be achieved. To continue the strides of EFA 2015, the global community had joined hands once more, committing to a renewed education agenda (Education 2030), through the adopted Incheon Declaration in May of 2015, to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all." UNESCO is expected to lead the education commitments within the Education 2030. The new Education 2030 Agenda has been adopted as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which was endorsed by 193 Members States in September 2015. One of the distinctive features of the Education 2030 Agenda is acknowledging the potential of ICT in achieving the targets for quality lifelong learning for all. The UNESCO Bangkok ICT in Education programme will continue our best effort to support our Member States in harnessing the full potential of ICT to strengthen overall education systems, knowledge dissemination, information access, quality and effective learning, and more effective education service provision, as stated in the Incheon Declaration.
[1] For more information, refer to UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015: http://en.unesco.org/gem-report/ 2015 Achievements  Major Projects and Programmes
Learn more about the major projects and achievements that have been made throughout the year, including the Supporting Competency-Based Teacher Training Reforms to Facilitate ICT-Pedagogy Integration, the work of the Resource Distribution and Training Centres, promotion of Safe, Effective and Responsible Use of ICT, ICT for TVET and open and distance e-learning.
Country Support
The ICT in Education team has had the privilege to support Myanmar ICT for Education developments, as well as provide technical assistance and advice to the Kyrgyz Republic. International Cooperation
ICT in Education and APEID promote policy level support, capacity development as well as encourage regional and international cooperation through such major events as Central Asia Symposium on ICT in Education, the 1st Asia-Pacific Meeting on Education 2030, EDUsummIT, and projects such as KScience. Knowledge Sharing
To foster knowledge exchange, development, and dissemination, ICT in Education has undertaken a few publications, including the theme of digital citizenship status in the Asia Pacific region, as well as the 5 country cases worlwide on developing and implementing ICT competency standards for teachers. Additionally, the monthly newsletter aims to provide the latest information on ICT in Education. Resources Not to be Missed OpenEMIS
Developed by UNESCO with the strong technical support of the Community Systems Foundation (CSF), the OpenEMIS is a free system that can be utilized and customized to specific needs by Member States. For the OpenEMIS website, follow the link. ICT in Education Toolkit
The Toolkit is intended to provide education policy makers, planners and practitioners with a comprehensive approach to formulating, planning, and evaluating education development programmes. It consists of six toolboxes, a total of 19 tools that include interactive instruments and guidelines. Portal for Teachers
The Portal aims to support teachers and educators through a range of useful ICT in Education information, such as guidelines, lessons plans, tools, and links to ICT teacher training courses. ICT in Education Teacher Training Series
This freely downloadable collection of e-learning tools and materials provide support for instructed learning and self-learning for educators, students, and learners. Prospects for Year 2016  Year 2016 will be marked as the first year that the new Education 2030 Agenda be actually adapted at the national levels. In this prospect, the ICT in Education at UNESCO Bangkok will support the Member States in effectively integrating ICT in education systems across the sectors and harnessing its potential to help achieve equitable and quality lifelong learning for all.
 More specifically, we plan to continue to provide Member States with various regional/sub-regional platforms to facilitate policy dialogues on desirable/appropriate roles of ICT in achieving the new education goals and more importantly on setting up indicators to measure the impact of ICT on education and learning. This will include the Asia Pacific Ministerial  Forum on ICT in Education (AMFIE) and the Central Asia Symposium on ICT in Education, to name a few.
To support evidence-based policy development, the ICT in Education at Bangkok will continue to conduct comparative research and case studies on current issues in educational and learning technology, and turn the major findings into policy briefs. As part of the on-going Korean Funds-in-Trust project ("Supporting  Competency-Based Teacher Training Reforms to Facilitate ICT-Pedagogy Integration"), the ICT in Education at Bangkok will be moving on to its third phase in 2016. In this phase, the project team will help build the capacity of national teacher institutions in operationalizing the national ICT competency standards for teachers, starting from the three pilot countries (Nepal, Philippines and Uzbekistan). Once again, UNESCO Bangkok would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support, participation and inspiration. We wish you a happy and healthy new year ahead! | ICT in Education Fanpage | ICT in Education on Twitter | | 
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