LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN NATIONS ADOPT COCHABAMBA DECLARATION ON EDUCATION

Paris, March 8 (No.2001-35) - The meeting of the Regional Intergovernmental Committee of the Major Project for Education (PROMEDLAC VII), organized by UNESCO in Bolivia, ended yesterday evening with the adoption of the Cochabamba Declaration and a series of recommendations concerning educational policies.

The Conference, a landmark for the future of education in Latin America and the Caribbean, brought together delegations from most countries in the region, including 16 education ministers and 15 deputy ministers. It was opened on March 5 by the President of Bolivia, Hugo Banzer.

The Conference took stock of education throughout the region and formulated concrete proposals for activities to be carried out within the framework of the follow-up to the World Education Forum (Dakar, April 2000).

Aďcha Bah-Dialo, Interim Assistant Director-General for Education, read an address by UNESCO Director-General Koďchiro Matsuura: “PROMEDLAC has taught us much in terms of the importance of acting together, and of the need for united policy criteria and solid exchange and communication mechanisms in a sensitive social development area. Through the Recommendations of the Meetings of Ministers, it was possible to construct a body of ideas representing collective thinking on the meaning of education and on the construction of sustainable and adequate human development for the region.”

The ministers adopted the Cochabamba Declaration which expresses their concern regarding objectives which have yet to be fulfilled. They reaffirmed their determination to find new ways to achieve these targets. In the Declaration, the education ministers of Latin America and the Caribbean say that to achieve a qualitative leap in education, “education systems must accelerate the pace of change in order to not fall behind changes that are taking place in other parts of society. The efforts that are currently taking place in favour of systemic change through reforms in education will be of little benefit if change does not take place as well in education processes and actors.”

Recalling the irreplaceable part teachers play in achieving quality learning, the signatories also stress that “the participation of new actors and the introduction of new technologies should work to reinforce the professional role of teachers.” They add: “Within a region of growing social inequality, the strengthening and the transformation of public education represents a key mechanism for effective social democratization.”

The Declaration also requests the creation of “adequate and flexible mechanisms to assure on-going participation of a multiplicity of actors, and that inter-sector practices be encouraged in the field of education.” Furthermore it adds: “the teaching of information and communication technologies should take place under the guidance of social and education proposals that are committed to equity and quality. A clear challenge in the coming years will be the building of a school model in which students and teachers learn to make use of technology at the service of their respective learning processes. Moreover, we should not forget that the choice of making this learning more efficient should consider primarily the potential of people - particularly of teachers - and the respect for cultural identity, rather than merely the promises of technology itself.”

Finally, the signatories of the Cochabamba Declaration request UNESCO to take the initiative of organizing in co-operation with the region’s ministers “a Regional Project with a 15-year perspective”, taking into account both as yet unaccomplished and emerging objectives.

The 54 Recommendations made by the Conference tackle nine major points: new meanings of education in a globalized, permanently changing world; quality learning and responding to diversity; strengthening and giving new meaning to the roles of teachers; management processes at the service of learning and participation; broadening and diversification of the life-long learning opportunities; technologies for changing education; financing; information systems for the improvement of education policies and practices; international co-operation. They have been conceived to complement the Framework for Action adopted at the World Education Forum and at the regional preparatory meeting that was held in San Domingo in February 2000.

At the close of the meeting the Chairperson of UNESCO’s Executive Board, Sonia Mendieta de Badaroux, declared: “Although PROMEDLAC has, at this point at the end of the projected 20 years, not fully met its objectives, the project will continue to play a major role with regard to educational development and integration.” She added: “We should never lose sight of the fact that there is an inseparable relation between poverty and basic education. Thus empowering the poor through basic education is tantamount to fighting poverty, since poverty profiles of target learners have a strong bearing on issues such as illiteracy, lack of access to information, malnutrition and exclusion.”

 

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