SINGAPORE, Thursday, 14 November 2019 – Colonel Haji Muhammad Haszaimi bin Bol Hassan, Commandant of Defence Academy Royal Brunei Armed Forces (DA RBAF) is currently attending the 23rd ASEAN Regional Forum Heads of Defence Universities, Colleges and Institutions Meeting, 2019 (ARF HDUCIM) held from 11 to 14 November 2019 at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Republic of Singapore.
The meeting is co-chaired by SAFTI Military Institute (SAFTI MI), in partnership with S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the National Defence University of Pakistan. This year’s meeting was participated by 22 out of 27 member countries.
Officiating the event and delivering the Keynote Address was the Singapore Senior Minister of State for Defence (SMS), Mr Heng Chee How. In his address, he commended the ARF achievements for the last 2 decades, since it was first established in 1994. He reiterated that ARF continue to remain relevant in the 21st Century and urge the need to strive the region together to build a stronger and more resilient military education community of Asia-Pacific.
With the theme ‘Military Education to Enhance Confidence Building, Leadership Development and Opportunities for Cooperation, the meeting examines the scope of military education in the areas of leadership and curriculum development in the age of rapidly changing security concerns, including political, social and cultural expectations and economic sustenance, and the opportunities for educational collaboration that can boost confidence building measures among militaries to pursue peaceful outcomes.
During the meeting, presentations were delivered by participating countries. The outcomes of these presentations centred around enhancing the ability of professional military educational institutions to develop, deliver and review educational best practices through inter-institutional and multinational dialogue, support and cooperation.
Commandant DA RBAF has also presented a paper entitled ‘Leadership in the Age of Disruption’. In his paper, he highlighted how disruptive changes - radical social and technological change; in this era had presented multiple risks to leadership in the military realm. Such risks include irrational thinking, poor decision making, leadership values, dysfunctional of the spectrum of warfare and military values and ethos.
He also added that, in order to have a robust and comprehensive training and education framework, it is essential to have foundation resources that serves as a backbone or core to the organizational mission, namely the Defence White Paper, Armed Forces Strategic Guidance and Military Doctrines. Together with these cores, the System Approach to Training and Education can be better enhance by adopting three key lines of approaches including Innovative Approach to Educating and Training, Deliverable Methods Towards Resilient Leadership, and Professional Military Education Research and Development.
The meeting will conclude today, 14 November 2019 with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to host the 24th ARF HDUCIM in 2020.
