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P r e f a c eIn responding to the manifold emerging challenges toeducation in Asia and the Pacific in the new century,this APEID book series, Educational Innovation forDevelopment, is launched to reflect a rich base ofknowledge out of rethinking on roles of education indevelopment. This series is also a means to disseminateinnovative practices in undertaking education reformson a local and system-wide basis.APEID (Asia-Pacific Programme of EducationalInnovation for Development) is a regional co-operativeprogramme inspired by collective commitment ofMember States to national socio-economic development,and based on reciprocity for mutual learning and selfreliance.The objective of APEID is to contribute to strengtheningnational capacities for undertaking educationalinnovations to enhance the contribution of education tolifelong learning and human development, defined bythe Member States in the context of their own socioeconomicand cultural systems. It seeks to giveexpression to the evolving idea of development as anoverall, multi-dimensional and diversified process,essentially endogenous in nature, linked with the valuespeculiar to each society, and requiring activeparticipation of organizations, institutions andindividuals who are its agents and beneficiaries on alifelong basis.‘Innovation’ is more a social, economic and culturalterm than a technical one. It is purposeful, creative,organized acts that endow resources with a new capacityto create new wealth, the means by which changes areexploited as an opportunity for new resources ordifferent services. Innovation is capable of beinglearned, practised and replicated. Educationalinnovation refers to ideas or practices new to a specificeducational context that meet unsatisfied needs. In thissense, educational reform is also an innovation, but onethat brings about fundamental and pervasive systemwisetransformations.