Links to JEA
The Jesuit Educational Conference--East Asia and Oceania (JEC-EAO) is a loose structure of national teams from all provinces and regions of the assistancy. It has brought a long term Ignatian renewal program to Jesuit and Catholic schools in the region.
When the Jesuit Network in 1979 was set up with Fr. Daven Day, SJ as executive secretary, its Ignatian programs were opened to all schools who wanted to participate. Twenty years later, there are hundreds of schools, Jesuit, Catholic and other Christian, that belong to the Network in every country of our region and beyond it.
In August 1995, Mrs. Jenny H. Go, was appointed as Executive Secretary, assisted by Fr. Alfred Deignan, SJ (HK). Fr. Riyo Mursanto, SJ (IDO) succeeded them on September 1, 2005.
Today, approximately 500 out of the 1700 Jesuits of the East Asia and Oceania assistancy work in education, together with over 5,000 lay academic and administrative staff, teaching nearly 100,000 students from elementary school up to doctoral levels.
JEC-EAO's Ignatian renewal program has touched every aspect of the school curriculum, which was defined in 1980 as "all those experiences in the life of the school over which the school has some control." The programs have kept up with the best developments in Jesuit education around the world, and have covered areas such as faith and moral development of teachers and students, school administration, faculty professional and spiritual development, parent programs, and in recent years, strategies for integrating faith and justice into the total school curriculum.
Since 1983, the main thrust of JEC-EAO has centered on the "Ignatian" spirit of school principals. The yearly gatherings of school principals still continue, and in the intervening years, international workshops to introduce Ignatian methods and approaches for second level administrators, student counselors, and directors of service programs have been established.
Personal contact between seminars is kept through mail and by visits. There is also the Ignatian Network newsletter which has correspondents in all countries where we have Network teams. The newsletter provides an exchange of ideas between schools. It also strives to disseminate the latest ideas on Ignatian education from Fr. General in Rome, from different Jesuit educational conventions, and from Jesuit writings.
The Xiamen project is another example of the outreach of JEC-EAO. After mutual trust was built up with the education authorities in Xiamen, Jenny Go set-up programs that have been functioning these past years. Jesuits, sisters, and lay people direct the Xiamen programs.
JEC-EAO is providing an important service at this time when Jesuit education is experiencing a new upsurge of creativity around the world. It is one of the few educational systems that provides both a theory and a pedagogy about how to educate the whole person. Its practical emphasis on forming young people of "competence, conscience, and compassionate commitment" (Kolvenbach) makes it a very attractive proposition to discerning parents and educators of all cultures.
More recently the JEC-EAO has made a determined effort to explore successful models of education for the poor. This will help the Jesuits and companions not only to face new educational challenges in Cambodia, East Timor and Thailand, but in areas where our long standing institutions wish to reach out more to the disadvantaged in the spirit of our recent statements of Jesuit mission.
The role of this body is to support and promote cooperation among Jesuit universities and colleges across Asia, and also to promote intellectual rigour in all our activities.
For more information, please visit http://www.ajcu-eao.org
Contact: Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ