In WCOTP ASEAN Regional Conference held in Baguio City, Philippines on 5 May 1977, a meeting was held with the representative of teachers’ associations from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. A discussion of the possibility of founding one forum of teachers’ association of ASEAN was set up.

In the essence of the discussion, all participants came to an agreement to form the association and decided to have a further discussion in a meeting to be held in Jakarta while the members were attending WCOTP World Assembly of Delegates.

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On 31 July 1978 the chairman of the delegates of teachers’ associations of ASEAN member countries, attending the 1978 WCOTP World Assembly of Delegates, held a special and separate meeting in Jakarta. The thirteen teachers associations of ASEAN countries had found a common need for having one real and formal teachers’ association of ASEAN countries.

 

The meeting decided that the association was aimed at realizing and fostering the philosophy, the concept and aims of ASEAN. It was also decided that then next meeting was held in Singapore in November 1978. The programs were to decide the name of the association, to discuss the structure of the organization, the aims and the executive committee, and to work out activities of the association, and so forth.

 

Further to the meeting held in Jakarta, an ASEAN teachers’ association meeting was held in Singapore on 23 November 1978. The principal decisions are as follows :

 

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1. Name of the teachers’ association of the five ASEAN countries is ASEAN Council of Teachers (ACT).

2. ACT should be a flexible and loose federation of teachers’ organization in the ASEAN countries.

3. The aims of ACT are set as
   - To cooperate with the members in realizing the philosophy and aims of ASEAN as well the spirit and culture of the nations in this region.
   - To foster and cooperate with ASEAN countries in the common projects and programs and sharing mutual interests in the fields of teaching, education, science and culture.
   - To foster the development of educational activities directed towards the achievement of aims and aspiration of ASEAN.

4. The ACT secretariat shall be administered by turns by each of the five ASEAN countries. The teachers’ associations of each country shall be responsible to serve for one year.

5. At the beginning stage, in the organizing development, ACT shall conduct activities such as goodwill tours, sports, conventions, meetings, seminars and cultural festivals.

6. The activities mentioned above are not only to be participated by the leaders of each organization but all teachers in ASEAN countries as well.

7. The teachers associations participating in the activities mentioned in point (5) shall bear the participants’ expense.

8. A local association of teachers shall be responsible for raising fund to finance the association and may contact foundation, local as well as international agency, provided it has binding agreements.

9. ACT meetings are held whenever needed. They can be held on the occasion where activities organized my international situations are attended by teachers’ association of ASEAN.

10. Singapore Teachers’ Union was designated as chairman and responsible for the office of ACT Secretariat for the 1978/1979 term office.

11. The principal ACT activity in this term was to hold the first Convention in Bangkok for the four days in 1979. KHURUSAPHA, the Teachers Council of Thailand was the host and organizing committee.