Comparative Education Society of Asia

CALL FOR PAPERS: The 14th Biennial CESA Conference will be held in Islamabad on 23-25 November 2025. Theme Revealed

“Challenges to Inclusive and Equitable Education”

14th CESA Biennial Conference

Islamabad, 23-25 November 2025

We are pleased to announce the 14th CESA Biennial Conference, which will be held in Islamabad, Pakistan on 23-25 November 2025.

The theme for the CESA 2025 is “Challenges to Inclusive and Equitable Education”

The conference website can be reached via this link: https://cesa2025.aiou.edu.pk/

More details regarding the theme and sub-themes can be found here: https://cesa2025.aiou.edu.pk/index.php/call-for-papers/
The conference will feature two plenary panels with invited keynote speakers. Professor Krishna Kumar (former Director of India’s NCERT), Professor Manjula Vithanapathirana (Director General of Sri Lanka’s National Institute of Education) and Professor Manzoor Ahmed (Professor Emeritus of BRAC University, Bangladesh) have already kindly agreed to participate in one such panel. Other keynote speakers will be confirmed soon.

We warmly invite paper submissions from educational scholars working on all areas of educational studies, in relation to societies across Asia and beyond. Before submitting your paper proposal, please read the Call for Papers (both the rationale for the conference theme and the elaboration of the sub-themes), and consider what type of presentation you wish to propose, and which sub-theme it aligns with most closely.

The link for the Paper Submission and Registration System can be found here: https://cesa2025.aiou.edu.pk/index.php/abstract-submission/

You will need to register on the system first before you can proceed to submit your abstract. All abstracts will be peer reviewed before a decision is reached on acceptance.

If you have any queries about the conference, please do not hesitate to write to this email address: cesa2025@aiou.edu.pk.
CESA and the AIOU conference organisers look forward very much to welcoming you to Islamabad this November!

Message from President

Dear Colleagues,

I am honoured to have been elected to succeed Prof. Liu Baocun as CESA President from 2021. Since its establishment more than a quarter of a century ago, CESA has become an important platform for exchange amongst educational scholars across Asia and beyond. As President, it is my aim to work with CESA’s Board and membership to further enhance our capacity to facilitate exchange and collaboration amongst Asia-based researchers, and to give them a stronger voice in global debates over education.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented a huge challenge to organisations such as ours, dedicated to promoting international scholarly exchange. Our 2020 biennial conference, due to be hosted by Kathmandu University in Nepal, was postponed for a year and eventually took place online in September 2021. Nevertheless, our Nepali colleagues did a wonderful job of adapting the conference for online delivery.

In 2023, CESA’s 13th biennial conference will be held in Hiroshima, Japan. On behalf of CESA, I warmly invite educational scholars from around the world to join colleagues from Asia in Hiroshima in 2023.

Much has been written in recent years about the need for a ‘decolonisation’ of educational studies, with the aim of countering ‘eurocentrism’ or ‘west-centrism’. The continuing dominance of global educational debate by scholars, institutions and journals based in the West is a real problem for our field. However, talk of ‘decolonisation’ is conducted primarily in western academic forums by western-based scholars obsessively focused on ‘western hegemony’. I therefore urge all who are serious about ‘de-centring’ the west to look beyond the familiar western conference circuit, and engage with colleagues in Asia by participating in conferences, symposia or workshops organised by CESA.

From 2021, CESA is associated with a new UNESCO Chair on Education for Peace, Social Justice and Global Citizenship, based at Kyushu University. In April 2021, CESA teamed up with UNESCO Bangkok to organise an online forum to gather feedback from Asian scholars on the interim report of UNESCO’s Futures of Education Commission. I look forward to seeing CESA contribute to similar initiatives in the future.

Meanwhile, we will seek further to expand CESA’s network to involve members from Asian societies that have found themselves marginalised in global educational debate. This effort to strengthen connections amongst Asian scholars, and enhance the global profile of Asian research into education, has always been, and will remain, at the heart of CESA’s mission.

Sincerely yours,

Edward Vickers

Department of Education,

Kyushu University, Japan

Board Members and Secretariat

President

Edward Vickers (Kyushu University)

Past Presidents

Liu Baocun (Beijing Normal University)

Chanita Rukspollmuang (Siam University)

Yoshio Gondo (Nakamura Gakuen University)

Lee, Byung-Jin (Korea National University of Education)

Muhammad Fakry Gaffer (Indonesia University of Education)

Kengo Mochida (Kyushu University)

Secretary General

Latika Gupta (Central Institute of Education, Delhi University, India)

Treasurer

Wataru Hanai (Kyushu University)

Assistant Secretary General

Maria Manzon (Sophia University)

Liu Qiang (Beijing Normal University)

Sicong Chen (Kyushu University)

Suwithida Charungkaittikul (Chulalongkorn University)

Teng Jun (Beijing Normal University)

Assistant Secretary

Ken Pombereol Morobe (Graduate Student at Kyushu University)

Kailei Zhang (Graduate Student at Kyushu University)

Web Manager

Ken Pombereol Morobe (Graduate Student at Kyushu University)

Kailei Zhang (Graduate Student at Kyushu University)

Board Members

Abdul Hameed (University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan)

Afaf Manzoor (University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan)

Chanita Rukspollmuang (Vice President, Siam University)

Dorji Thinley (Royal University of Bhutan)

Dorothy I-ru Chen (National Chi Nan University)

Helen Ting Mu Hung (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia)

Il Hwan Chung (Catholic University of Daegu)

Jandhyala B G Tilak (Council for Social Development, New Delhi)

Jasmine Sim Boon Yee (Nanyang Technological University)

Kwon Dong-Taik (Korea National University of Education)

Latika Gupta (Department of Education, Delhi University)

Leang Un (Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Royal University of Phnom Penh)

Liu Baocun (Beijing Normal University)

Lorina Calingasan (University of the Philippines)

Mahesh Parajuli (Dean, School of Education, Kathmandu University)

Manzoor Ahmed (BRAC University)

Manjuma Akhtar Mousumi (BRAC University)

Liz Jackson (University of Hong Kong)

Mark Bray (University of Hong Kong)

Minoru Morishita (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology)

Palaniappan Ananda Kumar (University of Malaya)

Raihani el-Banjaray (Sultan Syarif Kasim State Islamic University)

Sothy Khieng (CamTech University)

Teng Jun (Beijing Normal University)

Tatsuya Kusakabe (Hiroshima University)

* The CESA constitution stipulates that there can only be one voting Board member for each country or region. Where two ordinary Board members for one jurisdiction are listed, these members are ‘alternate’ (i.e. only one can vote).

Biennial Conference

CESA BIENNIAL CONFERENCES, 1996- present

The 12th Biennial Conference: Kathmandu.

25th – 26th September 2021

Theme: Valuing Diversity in Education: Formal and Informal Learning Across Cultures.

Host: Kathmandu University School of Education (KUSOED)

The 11th Biennial Conference: Siem Reap.

10th – 12th May 2018

Theme: Education and Social Progress: Insights from Comparative Perspectives.

Host: Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia (PUC)

The 10th Biennial Conference: Manila.

28th-30th January 2016

Theme: Diversity in Educational Policy and Practice: Challenges and Opportunities

Host: Henry Sy Bldg., De La Salle University.

The 9th Biennial Conference: Hangzhou.

16th-18th May 2014

Theme: Education, Equality and Social Harmony: Asian Experiences in Comparative Perspective

Host: Hangzhou Normal University

The 8th Biennial Conference: Bangkok.

8th-11th July 2012

Theme: Education of the Dawn of the New Decade: When the Quality and Sustainability Movement Converge.

Host: Chulalongkorn University

The 7th Biennial Conference: Gwangju.

11th-13th November 2010

Theme: Diversity, Co-existence and Challenge of Multicultural Education in Asian Countries

Host: Gwangju National University of Education(GNUE)

The 6th Biennial Conference: Hong Kong.

8th-10th January 2007

Theme: Learning from Each Other in an Asian Century

Host: The University of Hong Kong

The 5th Biennial Conference: Bangi.

30th-31th May 2005

Theme: Education for World Peace: The Asian Context

Host: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

The 4th Biennial Conference: Bandung.

21st-22nd July 2003

Theme: Global Changes and the Role of Education in Asia

Host: Indonesia University of Education

The 3rd Biennial Conference: Taiwan.

2001

Theme: The Prospects of Asian Education for the New Century

Host: National Taiwan Normal University

The 2nd Biennial Conference: Beijing.

1998

Theme: Modernization of Education vs. Cultural Traditions: Prospect of Asian Education in the 21st Century.

Host: Beijing Normal University

The 1st Biennial Conference: Tokyo.

10th-11th December 1996

Theme: “Asian Perspectives in Education for the 21st Century”

Host: Waseda University

What’s New

5 June 2018 – We have launched CESA Review and Publication.

11 May 2018 – The 11th Biennial Comparative Education Society of Asia, CESA 2018 was held at Sokhalay Angkor Villa Resort, Siem Reap, Cambodia from 11-12 May 2018. For further information, please follow the link.

06 September 2017 – CESA and the Asia-Pacific Journal of Education have agreed on a formal association, whereby the APJE becomes the official journal of CESA. A focus issue of the APJE, inaugurating its new relationship with CESA, was published which can be accessed here.

30 May 2017 – We have launched the website for CESA.

07 Jul 2015 – The 10th Biennial Conference was held at Henry Sy Bldg., De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines from 28th-30th January 2016.
For further information, please visit the website for the 10th biennial conference, CESA 2016 from the link below. http://www.cesph.org/

22 Dec 2014 – Report of the 9th Biennial Conference is now available from here.

13 Apr 2014 – We have relaunched our website. We apologize for any inconvenience occurred to you.

10 Apr 2014 – We are pleased to announce 9th CESA Conference in Hangzhou, China. Please see here.

30 Jun 2011 – We have built a new website for CESA. All new information will be updated here.