Sub-regional meeting for ICH safeguarding in Northeast Asia © ICHCAP

A sub-regional meeting for ICH safeguarding in Northeast Asia was held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia from 28 to 29 August 2018 on ‘ICH in Education: Towards Joint Collaboration for Promoting ICH in Formal and Non-Formal Education’.

The meeting was co-organized by the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific region under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP) and the UNESCO Beijing Office to explore the relationship between the safeguarding of ICH and education. Participants discussed conceptual issues and concrete examples of how ICH safeguarding can be integrated in formal and non-formal education. Special attention was paid to the role of governments, communities, schools and actors from non-formal education programmes with the aim of creating a sustainable network to exchange practices concerning ICH safeguarding and education, as well as to promote sub-regional collaboration.

Participants included government officials, representatives of National Commissions for UNESCO, coordinators and teachers from the UNESCO Associated School Project network (ASPnet) and representatives of civil society from five Northeast Asian countries (China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia and the Republic of Korea). The UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Section, UNESCO Bangkok Office, International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP) and the International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (IRCI) also participated in the meeting.

The meeting was hosted by the National Commission of Mongolia for UNESCO with the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports of Mongolia.