Since the beginning of the century the situation of humanity has altered radically, at an unprecedented pace, as a result of a number of worldwide revolutions which have simultaneously affected science and technology, economy and politics, demography and social structures. This accelerating rate of change, together with its planetary dimension, could be said to be the defining characteristic of the millennium. These changes have also greatly influenced the evolution of education systems which have, themselves, developed much faster, especially since the end of the Second World War - but not fast enough to keep in pace. This disparity, in other words, the difference in the rate of development between societies and education systems, is a totally new situation at the origin of what Philip H. Coombs, first director of IIEP, in the 1960s was already calling the ‘world crisis in education’, and the effects of which have continued to amplify ever since. Two international commissions, set up by UNESCO at a twenty-five year interval, have both asked how we can prepare the future generations for a world which is changing more and more rapidly. These Commissions, chaired respectively by Edgar Faure and Jacques Delors, both concluded that education, in our societies, must be global and must be lifelong.

EDUCATION BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD WAR Before the Second World War the function of education was perceived as being essentially to teach, to transmit knowledge and values that varied little from generation to generation in societies which, in most countries, remained relatively stable within national frontiers. Generally speaking, what rendered teaching elitist were conditions of access, basic values and sometimes even content, the responsibility of State and public education authorities often being limited. It was to forestall the takeover of education by totalitarian regimes that the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education was created in London in 1942, a body that would subsequently give birth to UNESCO. In the industrialized countries, free, compulsory and universal primary education had been widely available since the mid-nineteenth or early twentieth century, usually with separate schools for girls and boys. But secondary education, especially at the upper level, and to an even greater extent higher education, was only open to limited numbers of the corresponding age-group, and usually only to boys.

Teaching was frequently conceived along dualistic lines: one system for children from the upper classes leading to higher education, the other for hildren with fewer socio-economic advantages and those living in rural areas, preparing them for entry into the world of work after, three, four, six or ten years of school, depending on the country. In developing countries, especially those still under colonial rule, access to education was, moreover, reserved for a minority of boys, illiteracy being the norm.