Representatives from the five IPA members located within the Association of South East Asian Nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) joined with representatives of IPA’s members in Australia and New Zealand, plus the Chair of the Educational Publishers Forum, Stephan de Valk, and members of the IPA Secretariat, to discuss whether there was a need and desire to create a new regional EPF group.
After discussing the common concerns of the educational publishers in the region, many of which echoed global concerns, the gathered publishers agreed that it would be beneficial for a new group to constitute itself as the ‘ASEAN+ EPF’, and that it should operate along similar lines to the EPF’s other regional group based in Latin America. The group later designated Trasvin Jittidecharak of Thailand as its inaugural Chair.
We welcome this new group into the EPF community and look forward to working closely with them to address the challenges and threats faced by educational publishers in this part of the world.