DELEGATES FROM 180 COUNTRIES TO EXAMINE NEW CHALLENGES, "BEST PRACTICES" IN EDUCATION

Geneva (Switzerland), September 4 (N°2001-92) - When education ministers and delegates from more than 180 nations convene to discuss new challenges and critical policy choices at the 46th International Conference on Education (5-8 September 2001, Geneva), they can look back on a past decade shaped by both positive and negative trends in education.

* Since 1990, the world's illiterate population has declined only slightly from 895 million to 875 million today. If the status quo in education policy continues, one in every ten young adults (15-24 years old) will be illiterate in ten years time.

* Donor aid devoted to education accounts for 2% of education spending worldwide. Between 1990 and 1997, donor aid for education actually declined (from US$3.64 billion to US$3.55 billion).

* The UN estimates that, on average, an additional $7 billion dollars per year must be spent over the next decade in order to educate all the children in the world - less than the amount Europeans spend annually on ice cream.

* In South Asia, nearly three-in-five women are still illiterate today (compared to one-in-three men). Of the estimated 875 million illiterates worldwide, some 580 million (or two-thirds) are women and girls.

Since 1990 several positive trends also have emerged:

* Primary net enrolment ratios in the Latin American and Caribbean region have risen from 84% in 1990 to 94% in 1998, in the process halving the out-of-school child population from 11.4 million to 4.8 million. During this same period, developing countries as a whole increased net enrolment for children of primary school age from 78% to 82%.

* Over the past decade, the working-age population (15-64 years) in every region of the world has expanded more rapidly than the population of children below the age of 15. As fertility rates continue to fall over the coming decades, many countries in both the developed and developing regions will have an opportunity to better meet the educational requirements of school-age children.

* Since 1990, literacy rates for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa have risen from 41% to 54% of the population, while in Arab States they have climbed from 37% to 50%.

* Among 15-24 year olds, little or no gender disparity exists in literacy rates in Latin America & the Caribbean, East Asia and Oceania as well as the Europe and North

* America regions. In addition, women now make up nearly half (48%) of students enrolled in higher education worldwide.

This year's International Conference on Education - organized by the International Bureau of Education (IBE) of UNESCO - will draw attention to some 100 "Best Practices" in education from around the world, particularly initiatives that might be transferable from one region or context to another. These include South Africa's "40 schools project" to directly assist victims of violence and involve both teachers and students in the promotion of national reconciliation; Canada's school curriculum for Nunavut, a newly self-governing Inuit territory; and Malaysia's Mobile Internet Unit's effort to reach even the country's most rural and remote communities.

The unifying theme of the conference is: "Education for All for Learning to Live Together". Conference delegates - including around 80 Ministers of Education - will examine and debate practical policy options on six timely themes:

1. Adapting school curricula to the ethical dimensions of rapid scientific and technological advances. A workshop - organized by UNESCO and the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, La Villette, Paris - will further discuss science education reform, basic science teaching, methodologies for interdisciplinarity, and other themes.

2. Designing curricula to combat social exclusion and violence. The Ministry of Education of Argentina and the Institut Universitaire d'Etudes du Développment (IUED, Geneva) will organize a workshop to discuss how the content and processes of formal education may relate to social exclusion and patterns of violence.

3. Introducing educational initiatives that narrow the digital divide. A workshop - funded by the governments of Norway and Finland - will advocate policy choices that narrow the gap between the information rich and poor, and explore the potential new technologies have in improving learning, teaching, quality, management and delivery of education.

4. Integrating language-teaching policies and other strategies to broaden understanding. A workshop - financed by the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands - will highlight ways to balance requirements for mono-lingual national curricula with the challenge of improving minority and foreign-language teaching at school.

5. Shaping curricula to recognize cultural and linguistic diversity. A workshop - organized with the Intercultural Bilingual Education Training Programme for the Andean Countries - will focus on the integration of cultural diversity into the teaching of common values and democratic citizenship.

6. Citizenship education: learning at school and in society. A workshop - funded by the Danish Ministry of Education - will examine the role of schools in preparing young people for active participation in and analytical judgement of the democratic process, as well as education's role in defending common values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The conference also aims to focus the attention of policy-makers on a global action plan that commits governments to carry forward the most ambitious inter-UN agency campaign ever launched to eradicate illiteracy and achieve universal, quality Education for All (EFA) targets by 2015, in line with a framework for action adopted in April 2000 by more than 180 nations at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal.

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura will chair a special meeting, beginning at 9.30 a.m. on September 8, on the involvement of civil society in promoting Education for All.

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Press Conference: Sir John Daniel, head of UNESCO's Education Sector; Martine Brunschwig Graf, chief of the Department of Public Education of the Republic and Canton of Geneva; and Cecilia Braslavsky, director of the IBE, will meet the press on September 4 at 9.30 a.m. at the Palais des Nations.