HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn opened the Fifth Thailand-US Education Roundtable at Assumption University

HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn opened the Fifth Thailand-US Education Roundtable with a very motivating and inspiring speech on March 29, 2011 at 09:00 hrs. In her speech, she shared her valuable experiences while visiting the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. She now serves as the Honorary Chairperson of the US-Thailand Education Roundtable Steering Committee and has given full support for activities related to this project. She emphasized the need for Thailand to emulate some promising teaching and learning innovations especially in the science and math courses that can be implemented in educational institutions in Thailand . These innovations mean transforming the teaching and learning process from being informative to being more transformative so that these new approaches in teaching and learning could help solve global environmental problems. Students should be taught to search for facts, analyze them and to think critically. In closing her address to the Roundtable participants at Assumption University's John XXIII Conference Center, H.R.H. the Princess expressed optimism that the Roundtable Projects such as the one in 2011 can establish collaboration between countries to learn from each other.

HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhom attended the morning session of the Roundtable and then joined specially invited guests which included representatives from the Embassy of the U.S. in Bangkok and renowned scholars from overseas to a lunch hosted in her honor by the President and President Emeritus of Assumption University, at the Grand Salon, St. Raphael's Hall. At the end of the lunch the participants joined the Assumption University choir in singing a Happy Birthday song to H.R.H . Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhom and cutting a cake in anticipation of her birthday on April 2, 2011.

Overall the 2011 US-Thailand Education Roundtable meeting at Assumption University was very successful and all paper presenters and participants felt that the future of education in both countries, U.S. and Thailand would be boosted by fresh initiatives derived from the Bangkok meeting to take forward transformation learning to solve issues such as environmental problems and social disparities.

The photographs on the occasion of the 2011 US-Thailand Education Roundtable meeting at Assumption University are of souvenir value and speak volumes beyond the mere capacity of words, to highlight the Patronage of Thailand's most beloved Princess for Interdisciplinary approaches to education, and the meaningfulness of networked initiatives in academe.