ABSTRACT
The dramatic economic and political developments in the Asia-Pacific region over the past decade have not gone unnoticed and have spawned a variety of books, articles and studies of various sorts seeking to provide some insight into this rapid rise to prominence. While the usual economic factors are generally cited as major conditions for this rise, what is most interesting to observe is the pre-eminent role that is assigned to both formal and non-formal education in explaining the rapid development of the Asia-Pacific region. As Rohwen (1995) argues in his popular book Asia Rising,
Much of East Asia got an educational jump on other poor countries in the 1960s and sped ahead so fast that by the 1980s the Asian early birds were turning out children who were certainly more numerate than their counterparts in the rich world and often more capable of abstract thought of all kinds … East Asia was well positioned for an educational triumph.
(Rohwen, 1995, p.56)