Empowering Southeast Asian Students Through Positive Youth Development: A Pathway to Equitable, Inclusive, and Sustainable Education

Southeast Asia faces constant educational disparities, including access and equity gaps, quality and teacher-capacity challenges, digital and technological divides, and societal and policy-related constraints, all of which threaten the long-term sustainability of education systems. There is a need to identify and promote personal and contextual resources that can address these challenges. This chapter explores how the Integrative Paradigm of Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework can serve as a transformative approach to advancing equitable and inclusive sustainable education across the region. By integrating individual-level competencies (resilience, critical thinking, digital literacy), proximal–social supports (family engagement, teacher support), and ecological–distal influences (policy reforms, community-driven initiatives), this chapter highlights how PYD can foster student empowerment and long-term educational resilience. Through a contextualized analysis of Southeast Asian education systems, the chapter examines both barriers and opportunities for the application of PYD framework in the region, addressing policy gaps, workforce mismatches, environmental education, and stakeholder collaboration. It offers practical recommendations for policymakers, educators, and community leaders to create learning environments that not only promote academic success but also equip students with the skills and mindsets necessary for thriving in an evolving, sustainability-driven world.