On 18 April 2023, H.E. Secretary General Shi Zhongjun of the ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) met with the Honorable Prospero E. De Vera III, Chairman of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) of the Philippines in Manila.

The ACC Secretary General Shi Zhongjun said that, as an inter-governmental organization co-founded by 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS) and China, the ACC has been committed to promoting bilateral education exchanges and mutual learning. The ACC is willing to continue to serve as a linking bridge and platform to strengthen communications with education authorities, public and private education institutions in the Philippines, and to promote people-to-people exchanges and collaboration between China and AMS with the Philippines included, so as to garner public support for future growth of ASEAN-China comprehensive strategic partnership.

Chairman De Vera III noted that the Philippines and China, as time-honored and sincere friends, have been long enjoying sound cooperation in education. The Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos attaches great importance to education, while advancing higher education in the Philippines does face both opportunities and challenges. To empower education with hi-tech and digitization not only stands out as a major responsibility for the Philippines in the post-pandemic era, but also poses as an irreversible trend in our region. CHED stands ready to consistently cooperate with the ACC, with main focus put on materializing concrete projects in such fields as setting up more Confucius Institutes, STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education, short-term student exchange programs and applied digitization, so as to keep scoring new achievements in Philippines-China education collaboration.