Paris, 6 September {No. 96-154}- A UNESCO-sponsored forum to be held at Headquarters 16 and 17 September will stimulate dialogue among students, employers and other concerned partners and make recommendations for adapting higher education to needs of the 21st century labour market.

Participants at the Student Forum on Higher Education include representatives of student organizations and employers as well as policy-makers, non-governmental organizations and educators. They will discuss such key issues affecting higher education reform as increased demand for education, reduced public funding and the urgent need to adapt studies to the labour market.

Forming the basis for their discussions is a major new critical report on the quality and relevance of higher education prepared by 11 international student associations representing more than 400,000 members world-wide, part of UNESCO's Collective Consultation of Higher Education. Entitled "Higher Education in the 21st Century: A Student Perspective," the study was done as part of the Organization's 50th anniversary observances.

"The students were invited to undertake a critical analysis to ascertain how universities and other institutions of higher learning were preparing them for their roles as citizens and professionals in the 21st century," said Marco Antonio R. Dias, Director of UNESCO's Division of Higher Education. "Thus the quality and relevance of higher education today were scrutinised by the major stakeholders themselves who will be the leaders and experts in tomorrow's society."

The forum will revolve around three round table discussions, "Social Change and the Nature of Work," "Graduate Profiles in a Changing World," and "Sustainable Development and Graduate Employment -- A Regional Perspective," which focuses on Africa. Chaired by Professor Georges Haddad, chief of UNESCO's Advisory Group on Higher Education, the round tables will include such keynote speakers as Professor Mihaly Simai of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Professor Donald Ekong, former Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities.

The forum will conclude with concrete recommendations to educational policy-makers, and will be followed by subsequent round tables on related topics. All such input will be considered by the World Conference on Higher Education to be convened by UNESCO in 1998.