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submitting as their long-term national education plans. The RegionalOffice was to compile these plans, along with a comprehensive needsanalysis for each country that was being undertaken concurrently, andthen develop a method of analysis that would better inform policymakersin the region. This was deemed necessary because educationalplanners in the region found the Karachi Plan wanting in some criticalregards. For instance, though it was based on statistics that weresupposed to be descriptive of education in the region, it provided littlereal analysis that was useful for planners. Furthermore, many felt that itseconomic forecasts were not grounded in the reality of their individualcountry contexts. In fact, so unrealistic were the economic predictionsupon which it was based that it was often referred to as ‘pie-in-the-sky’.A new methodology was needed that would yield more accurate data, andthat was also adaptable to the specific needs of each country, and even todifferent regions within each country.Much of the work of developing this new methodology was done prior toApril 1965. However, its final form was very much influenced by thecontribution of the new Director of the UNESCO Regional Office, RajaRoy Singh, an educational administrator from New Delhi. The ‘AsianModel’ (UNESCO, 1966), as it became known, was presented to theBangkok Conference of Ministers of Education and MinistersResponsible for Economic Planning of Member States in Asia, inNovember 1965 (UNESCO, 1965). The overall importance of the AsianModel cannot be understated. It not only provided key data missing fromthe Karachi Plan, it regionalized the entire educational developmenteffort. The Asian Model marked both the attainment of, and theacceptance of, a new level of responsibility and self-respect for thecountries of the region.UNESCO-Japanese Co-operationThe next building block for educational innovation for development inAsia-Pacific came in 1967 when the Director-General of Japan's NationalInstitute for Educational Research (NIER), Dr Masunori Hiratsuka, andRaja Roy Singh, forged an agreement for direct co-operation betweenNIER and UNESCO. The agreement bound both UNESCO and theGovernment of Japan to "provide a joint co-operative programme ineducational research in Asia, through the National Institute ofEducational Research [NIER], Tokyo" (UNESCO, 1971a, p. 6). Thiswas the beginning of an important link in the Institute system for regionalco-operation, and later would prove to be an invaluable piece of the newAPEID network. "No other educational co-operation programme, in thisregion or any other developing region, has brought together so manycountries, representing such an enormous range of diversities, in aThe Building Blocks © 7