Good morning, brothers and sisters.
It is a pleasure for me, as the Chairperson, to open the EIAP Regional Conference 2009 here in Bangkok and to extend my warmest welcome to all the participants.
I am particularly grateful to Mr. Aloysius Mathews, Chief Coordinator, other EIAP coordinators and Secretariat staffs, who have worked hard to prepare this Conference.

The previous EIAP Regional Conference was held three years ago in Jakarta, Indonesia. Since then, some Central Asian countries have newly joined EIAP to this ever expanding area. I would like to express my great appreciation of the expansion of EIAP, which strengthens the ties of solidarity among teachers and school staff members in the Asia-Pacific region. In virtue of this, we can better support the children in this region. We can learn from, and communicate to each other in order to produce new wisdom which helps us overcome difficulties through our strengthened forces.

With “bread, freedom and peace”, we can realize EI’s target: “Quality Public Education for All”. What can we say about economic justice today? Due to the fundamentalism of the global market, the distributive system of property has been distorted to produce a small number of rich and a large population of poor people. Recently, this problem has become even more serious.

What of political freedom? Is it guaranteed in each country and territory in accordance with the ILO standards? Is our political activity democratically guaranteed? I should say “No”.

What of peace? Ethnic and religious conflicts and border disputes continue in various areas. The chain of poverty and violence is endless. Facing a harsh reality in which people cannot live together while hoping to do so, we can not stay there. Especially, with our educational profession, we are responsible first for considering children’s happiness and also for giving them hope.
Public education is a system to guarantee equal access to education for all children, in whichever country, area or family they were born. National and local governments should guarantee it financially. Education is an investment in the next generation and in the future. The next generation creates the future.

Our slogan is “Education for All”. In the EIAP region, however, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened to make it ever more difficult to realize our goal. Access to education and information literacy is guaranteed to the children from wealthy families. On the other hand, those from poor families are forced to work, without being given sufficient health care or even textbooks.

“Eliminate the Gap in Society”: This is the slogan of Japanese workers. Global recession required us to change our sense of values. We are standing at a crucial turning point of our era. This is the change from an era of competition, efficiency and speculation to one of peace, human rights, environment, coexistence, and mutual assistance. The social role of education has become more important. Let’s share this awareness in order to work together for the advancement of our campaign, and for the expansion and strengthening of our organization. We open this EIAP Regional Conference 2009 to confirm the above objectives.

Before closing my address, I would like to solicit your cooperation for the realization of the EI target, contained in the Declaration of our global campaign, “Quality Education for All”. Thank you very much.