MAIN THRUSTS — CONSTRUCTING A LEARNING SOCIETY

1993, THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON EDUCATION FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Almost twenty-five years after the report of the commission chaired by Edgar Faure, it was felt necessary to mandate another commission ‘to study and reflect on the challenges facing education in the coming years and to formulate suggestions and recommendations in the form of a report which could serve as an agenda for renewal and action for policy-makers and officials at the highest levels’. The International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century was therefore set up. Chaired by Jacques Delors, former French Minister of Economy and Finance, and President of the Commission of the European Community, it consisted of fourteen members. (3) Its report, Learning: the Treasure Within, is the result of more than two years of work, based on extensive studies, debates and discussions with teachers’ unions, non-governmental organizations and other groups. Taking full account of the ideas expressed in Learning to Be - in particular the two concepts of lifelong education and of the learning society - the Commission endeavoured to enlarge on them in the light of subsequent major world developments and of the changing, and sometimes contradictory, trends of today’s world. For instance, the threat of extreme danger, as well as the hopes and challenges created by scientific progress; the growing interdependence and globalization of problems, as well as the existence of increasing disparities; the aspiration to cultural identity and respect of differences, and the emergence of contradictory concerns such as those between tradition and modernity, those between the need for competition and the concern for equality of opportunity, and those between the extraordinary expansion of knowledge and the human capacity to assimilate it. Education, increasingly conceived as a key factor of societal development, had to adapt to new trends and prepare for change. What kind of education, then, for the twenty-first century? The Commission believed that education should rest on four ‘pillars’: ‘learning to know’ (acquiring a broad general education and in-depth knowledge in a few selected fields), ‘learning to do’ (acquiring competence based on a mix of abilities rather than on specialized vocational training), ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to live together’. The Commission clarified the concept of continuous education -or lifelong learning- linking it with that of the learning society, in which everything affords an opportunity for learning and enriching one’s potential. More than retraining, indispensable as this may be, since initial training for life is impossible, lifelong learning implies the acquisition of new knowledge throughout life: at school, out-of-school, at work and in social life. The training capacities of school -the main provider of organized knowledge - of non-formal education, of adult education and of life experience should be integrated. Basic education as advocated by the 1990 Jomtien Conference is a ‘passport for life’ and the foundation for lifelong learning. Furthermore, ‘any tendency to view basic education as a kind of emergency educational package for poor people and poor countries would be, in our view, an error.’(4) In order to make lifelong learning a reality, the Commission supported the idea of a ‘time credit’ allocated to young people at the start of their education, entitling them to a certain number of years of education of which they could take advantage throughout their life. New information and communication technologies are ‘in the process of achieving nothing short of a revolution’ affecting not only production and work, but also education and training. These technologies afford new possibilities to education, albeit at the risk of increasing existing inequalities, as the poorer are denied access to them. The Commission stressed the role of education, in an information society, in respect of the use of information and social values conveyed by the media.

The problem of unemployment is an increasingly important issue in all societies worldwide. Whilst education did not bear the brunt of responsibility for this problem, which stems primarily from economic factors, the Commission agreed that education had a role to play in resolving it by strengthening its links with the world of work, and by promoting increased mobility and retraining, alternating periods of education with periods of work. The Commission also outlined the role to be played by education at all levels from the standpoint of lifelong learning, the new responsibilities of teachers and their implication in training and retraining, and issues such as economic and financial choices, new types of certification, and the regulation of the education system.

EVOLUTION OF THE AGE-STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION, 1980-2010
The proportion of over-65s will shoot up in the low-growth countries from 12 per cent in 1990 to 16 per cent in 2010 and 19 per cent in 2050. This ageing of the population will undoubtedly have repercussions not only on lifestyles and standards of living, but also on the financing of public expenditure. Note

The report’s ‘pointers and recommendations’ make suggestions as to how education systems could reflect the requirements and demands of the world of the twenty-first century. Visible throughout are a number of basic tenets: a belief in the power of education as a key to the future; that people, who are the main factors in economic growth, are both the aim and the means of development; a plea for inequalities and disparities to be corrected, and an appeal for international co-operation to this effect; and the hope that interdependence in the global village will soon become active solidarity. This reflection, therefore, is not only wholly consistent with the ethical mission of UNESCO, but also clearly demonstrates how education can contribute to a culture of peace.

FOUR CRUCIAL ISSUES The Commission did its best to project its thinking on to a future dominated by globalization, to ask the right questions and to lay down some broad guidelines that can be applied both within national contexts and on a global scale. Here I shall examine four issues which I believe are crucial. The first issue is the capacity of education systems to become the key factor in development by performing a threefold function - economic, scientific and cultural. Everyone expects education to help build up a qualified and creative workforce that can adapt to new technologies and take part in the ‘intelligence revolution’ that is the driving force of our economies. Everyone - in North and South alike - also expects education to advance knowledge in such a way that economic development goes hand in hand with responsible management of the physical and human environment. And, finally, education would be failing in its task if it did not produce citizens rooted in their own cultures and yet open to other cultures and committed to the progress of society. The second crucial issue is the ability of education systems to adapt to new trends in society. This brings us to one of the fundamental responsibilities of education having to prepare for change despite the growing insecurity that fills us with doubts and uncertainties. Education must take into account a whole range of interrelated and interreacting factors that are always in a state of flux, whether it is dealing with individual or social values, family structure, the role of women, the status accorded to minorities, or the problems of urban development or the environment. The third crucial issue is that of the relations between the education system and the state. The roles and responsibilities of the state, the devolution of some of its powers to federal or local authorities, the balance to be struck between public and private education - these are just some aspects of a problem which, moreover, differs from one country to another. The fourth issue is the promulgation of the values of openness to others, and mutual understanding - in a word, the values of peace. Can education purport to be universal? Can it by itself, as a historical factor, create a universal language that would make it possible to overcome certain contradictions, respond to certain challenges and, despite their diversity, convey a message to all the inhabitants of the world? In this language which, ideally, would be accessible to everybody, all the world’s wisdom and the wealth of its civilization and cultures would be expressed in an immediately comprehensible form. The creation of a language accessible to everyone would mean that people would learn to engage more readily in dialogue, and the message that this language would convey would have to be addressed to human beings in all their aspects. A message that claims to be universal - one of education’s lofty ambitions - must be conveyed with all the subtle qualifications that take full account of human being’s infinite variety. This is no doubt our major difficulty. Jacques Delors From ‘Education for Tomorrow’, The UNESCO Courier, April 1996.

                               

FOOTNOTES:

(3) In’am Al Mufti (Jordan), Isao Amagi (Japan), Roberto Carneiro (Portugal), Fay Chung (Zimbabwe), Bronislaw Geremek (Poland), William Gorham (United States), Aleksandra Kornhauser (Slovenia), Michael Manley (Jamaica), Marisela Padrón Quero (Venezuela), Marie-Angélique Savané (Senegal), Karan Singh (India), Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Mexico), Myong Won Suhr (Republic of Korea), and Zhou Nanzhao (China).

(4) Learning: the Treasure Within, Paris, UNESCO, 1996.

Note: The regions correspond to UNESCO's nomenclature. The countries of the former Soviet Union are considered as developed countries, and those that are in Asia are also included here.