[MAIN THEME OF ASEP 2012]

 Cooperation and Competition

 Welcome to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The main theme selected in the conference of

Asian Students Exchange Program 2012 is "Cooperation and Competition".

Cooperation means a group of people work hard together to achieve vision under the same purpose and competition means groups strive for some purpose with each other.

Both of them are "dynamic process" behaviors for achieving goals. If there is only competition, it will easily become rapacity; however, if there is only cooperation, it will often become an empty and steady situation.

It seems that both of them are incompatible, but it looks like the wisdom of "Ying" and "Yang" in ancient Chinese philosophy.

Although both of them are in confronting positions, they have relationship in dependence, transformation, rising and falling and coexisting. The values created by them are not only often seen at learning, but also heard from time to time in business, society and international. By coincidence, the main theme of this year has the same idea with one of the four ability indicators in international education which is "Global Competitiveness" that announced in "White Pater on International Education for Primary & Secondary Schools" by Ministry of Education, Taiwan in Year 2011.  

It is an important issue that students of our country need to know and understand when facing international exchange. This is, the work and tasks of the students in these few days are to design all kinds of special topics and discussions according to the theme, "Cooperation and Competition". Through these activities, they can enjoy to discover, analyze and interpret significance of the theme and prepare for presentation of special topic for the conference of Asian Students Exchange Program to increase their own construction of cultural background and their own global awareness and mobility.