The overall objective of UNESCO’s action in the field of education is the effective implementation of the right to education, as a prerequisite to democratization, in pursuance of the standard-setting instruments drawn up by the United Nations and adopted by Member States. In this vast endeavour, UNESCO has, throughout the half century of its existence, resorted to all means at its disposal to meet the many preconditions for ensuring the right to education for all. Among these means are a continuing analysis of the obstacles impeding the exercise of the right to education, as well as studies, pilot projects and innovative actions. The Secretariat has mobilized governments during conferences at world and regional levels to stimulate their political will. Regional plans for the development of education have been drawn up, and major projects launched to implement them with the support of international, regional and national financing programmes and institutions. A wide range of ways and means to ensure maximum efficiency in the utilization of resources has been devised, including the rethinking of educational policies and the promotion of appropriate educational planning. Over the years, UNESCO has endeavoured to promote the right to education through a two-pronged approach: generalizing access to education and giving priority attention to the emergency needs of disadvantaged countries or population groups. With the adoption of an integrated strategy for education for all, and with the implementation of the Jomtien Declaration and Framework for Action, the extension of the access to education has encouraged the pooling of school and out-of-school resources. Whilst concentrating on the objectives of providing education for all and of eradicating illiteracy in the shortest possible time, UNESCO has also intensified its efforts in favour of equal education for girls and women, of educational provision for disadvantaged countries, or disadvantaged groups such as migrant workers and their families, street children and child-workers, and populations living in remote rural areas. Last, but not least, the Secretariat has made every attempt to encourage the matching of the quantitative expansion of education with a corresponding effort towards its qualitative improvement.

A CHOICE BETWEEN TWO APPROACHES With the very limited resources available to UNESCO in its early days, a choice had to be made between two approaches: working towards the generalization of education or giving priority to the urgent needs of those particularly deprived of education. This remains a constant dilemma. At first, the Secretariat gave priority to emergency needs, which was, no doubt, a healthy sign of realism. As early as the end of the 1940s, UNESCO included fundamental education activities in its very first programmes - pilot projects in Haiti, China, and British East Africa - and issued its first publication entitled Fundamental Education. Fundamental education was a phrase coined by UNESCO which was inspired by the praiseworthy intention to bring some education to those ‘who could not afford to wait’. Over several decades the two Centres for Fundamental Education set up, for Latin America in Patzcuaro (Mexico) in 1951 and for the Arab States in Sirs-el-Layyan (Egypt) in 1952, trained hundreds of teachers, educators, and instructors who, through primary education as well as fundamental education, contributed significantly to the improvement of education in rural areas. During the first decade of its existence UNESCO also undertook projects in adult education, particular emphasis being paid to workers’ education. The first Conference on Adult Education took place in Elsinore (Denmark) in 1949. Since then, innumerable activities - generally out-of-school programmes undertaken in co-operation with non- governmental organizations - have been carried out, as have out-of-school activities for young people. Initiatives such as the study of obstacles to the equal access of women to education, projects to meet the special needs of children, and emergency programmes for the education of Palestinian and Middle Eastern refugees are also indicative of the importance attached by UNESCO to correcting blatant inequalities. However, at the time of the Elsinore Conference, a massive effort towards making education accessible to all was still to be undertaken. In 1951, the 14th session of the International Conference on Public Instruction jointly convened by UNESCO and the International Bureau of Education, adopted a recommendation concerning ‘compulsory education and its prolongation’ and one year later, the Secretariat considered as ‘permanent problems’ the extension of free and compulsory education to all and the reform of secondary education, including both vocational training and workers’ education. Ever since, UNESCO has sought to move forward along these two parallel paths - the generalization of education and priority attention to the disadvantaged. In 1952, a regional conference on the development of compulsory and free primary education was organized in Bombay. And 1957 saw the launching of a ten-year Major Project on the Extension of Primary Education in Latin America. But many other factors had yet to intervene before large-scale, global action towards the generalization of education could begin.

THE 1960s, A TURNING POINT In 1960, UNESCO’s General Conference adopted a standard-setting instrument of outstanding importance: the Convention against Discrimination in Education, which not only banned all forms of discrimination but also indicated positive measures to be taken by the States parties thereto in order to promote equality of opportunity in education. The Convention requires that Member States submit periodic reports on its implementation to the General Conference which has, in consequence, strengthened the legal foundations of UNESCO’s ethical mission in respect of procuring education for all. Yet it was, in fact, economic considerations that eventually led to the provision of the funding required to undertake large-scale action. Still in 1960, a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly recognized the importance of education for economic development. Financial resources were made available by the Special Fund (now the UNDP), the World Bank, UNFPA, UNICEF, and other multilateral or bilateral sources. Used to meet the education and development needs of newly independent countries, notably in Africa, these funds have been at the origin of a spectacular increase of financial resources for educational development. Regional conferences of ministers of education drew up plans addressed to the issue of raising enrolment levels to meet expected requirements in terms of the workforce. They gave a vigorous impulse to the development of education in their respective regions. Almost paradoxically, purely economic concerns seemed to be the best allies of ethical goals. However, priority was not always given to primary education and little of the funds devoted to education went to the fight against illiteracy. As population growth rates were higher than expected, the absolute number of illiterates continued to increase and the number of out-of-school children remained considerable. The end of the 1960s saw the beginnings of a Malthusian reaction - especially in economic circles concerned with returns on investment - against the expansion of education in the developing world, finding expression in an apparent opposition, a pretended necessity of choosing between quantity and quality, between democratization and efficiency. In this respect, during UNESCO’s General Conference, at ministerial-level meetings and in other events during International Education Year (1970), as well as in Learning to Be, the report of the International Commission on the Development of Education, under the chairmanship of Edgar Faure, the Organization took a firm stand and declared its refusal to choose between quantity and quality, between democratization and effectiveness, affirming on the contrary, that the two are inseparable and must therefore go forward together, each strengthening the other. The democratization of access to education, and its renewal, remain two durable and indissociable objectives in UNESCO’s action, in harmony with its humanistic approach to development as opposed to merely economic considerations. It is due in part to the action of the Organization that the criteria for granting loans applied by funding bodies have been broadened and are no longer subordinate to the satisfaction of labour needs. Justice, and greater equality of access to education in rural areas and in disadvantaged urban environments are aspects which are now fully taken into account for funding projects. This promising evolution marked the beginning of transition from a purely economic notion of development, to that of the more global perception of human development. The economic crisis of the 1980s, with structural adjustment plans to the detriment of the social sectors, led the Organization yet again to react and to spur the international community, gathered together in Jomtien in 1990, to declare that a global, humanistic and democratic approach to education must prevail.