The Asia Education Leader Course (AELC) Winter 2026 Pre-Study Series concluded with an interactive lecture by Assoc. Prof. Fuangarun Preededilok of Chulalongkorn University titled: Building Equitable Educational Futures through Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships. The lecture was attended by over 40 participants from all five AELC partner institutions.

Grounded in an understanding of educational equity as providing students with what they need to achieve equal educational outcomes, the lecture outlined an extensive list of issues and areas for improvement in the realm of educational equity. In five case studies, Prof. Preededilok highlighted some of the issues in the Thai context, illustrating the complexity of the issues. The second half of the lecture focused on the multi-stakeholder partnerships that have the potential to address issues of educational equity, again highlighting case studies in the Thai context to show how such partnerships function in real-world situations, including prospects and challenges.

Following the lecture, Prof. Preededilok introduced a “problem tree” activity for participants in which groups identify one key issue in educational equity (trunk), its main impacts on students and society (branches and leaves), and the root causes of the problem (roots). Further, students were asked to propose solutions to the problem they chose.

Student groups created imaginative diagrams of their problem trees, sharing issues such as the urban-rural resource gap, the digital divide and lack of learning opportunities for children from low-income families. Prof. Preededilok commented that the issues chosen were both timely and timeless, and that the choice of both general and specific issues reflects choices that can be made in future research, such as case studies versus conceptual research. Further, some groups focused more on the causes while others focused more on the solutions, also reflecting different approaches in educational research.

The AELC Secretariat would like to thank Prof. Preededilok for the engaging and comprehensive lecture, and all participants for their enthusiastic engagement and wonderful problem tree diagrams.

This concludes the Pre-Study Session for the Winter 2026 Course, and the AELC Secretariat would again like to thank all lecturers and participants for the thought-provoking lectures and discussions. We hope that the conversations started in the Pre-Study will continue into the Winter Course next month.