The world has been literally transformed by political forces, demographic pressures, and the progress
and problems that have ushered in the modern world. In the beginning was the war, the most
horrifying that the world had ever known, out of the rubble and ruin of which UNESCO was born.
In the beginning was also the great hope of which UNESCO was a part, that the creation of the
United Nations would mark a new era in the story of humanity, one in which recourse to force
and violence to resolve disputes would give way to the peaceful and concerted action of States.
The challenge to UNESCO’s founders - and to their successors until this very day - was that of
converting a noble idea into practical and worthy action. How does one construct the defences
of peace in the minds of men? How does one go about the education of humanity for justice and
liberty and peace? To UNESCO’s first Director-General, the eminent British scientist Julian
Huxley, the most immediate challenge facing the Organization was the ‘existence of immense
numbers of people who lack the most elementary means of participating in the life of the modern
world’. One of the first responses to this analysis of the situation was a pilot project in
fundamental education in Haiti launched in 1948. This was the first of a series of projects
over the last half century that have aimed to bring education to those who have been denied
its
benefits: to serve the unserved, to reach the unreached.
This humble project also illustrated
and served to fuel many of the controversies and debates that would animate UNESCO in the follow
ing decades. Would it prove more effective for UNESCO to support small innovative projects or
to encourage grand national and regional plans for the development of education, such as the
Karachi and Addis Ababa Plans developed by regional conferences of ministers of education in
the early 1960s? Should priority be given to non-formal education or was the development of
formal education systems, along the pattern of those in the industrialized countries, the
example to be followed? Should preference be given to literacy and education for adults, with
the hope that they would pass their newly acquired knowledge and changed attitudes on to their
children, or was it better to begin with children and educate the nation from the bottom up?
These issues were hotly debated fifty years ago; they remain unresolved today.
UNESCO, while born out of an idea, matured in a world beset by change, controversy and conflicts
that marked every aspect of its development. Yet, amid this tumult and change, UNESCO has
always remained true to certain guiding principles and commitments. Foremost among these is the
right to education: a right proclaimed in 1948 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
A measure of the progress achieved in this area is that today it seems almost banal to assert
that education must be the right of all and not the privilege of the few. Yet, then as now, it
is proving far more difficult to implement the right to education than to proclaim it. From
Karachi and Addis Ababa to Tehran and Jomtien, one conference after another has stressed the
right to education and set in motion ambitious plans to achieve it. While the goal remains
elusive, remarkable progress has nonetheless been achieved, as the accounts in this volume
testify.
Another point clearly demonstrated in the articles that follow is that ‘education’ has been
anything but a static concept during the last half century. Ideas are capable of changing the
world, particularly the world of education which is itself built upon and out of ideas.
During the last forty years, there has been a remarkable transformation in our perception of
education, from an individual right to a social and economic imperative. The notion of
‘human capital’ that came to the fore in the 1960s suddenly transformed education from
consumption to investment, from a mainly private concern to a critical matter of public policy.
Recently, we have received a timely reminder in Learning: the Treasure Within, the report of
the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, chaired by Jaques
Delors, that education continues to have a crucial role to play in promoting social cohesion
and democratic participation as well as in fostering economic development. Education, we are
reminded, must serve the society as a whole, not merely its economy. It must bear witness to
the past, which is ever present in human cultures, as well as prepare youth for an unknown
future.
The right to education is not only essential in itself, it is also instrumental to
the enjoyment of other human rights and to meeting the responsibilities that accompany them.
Over the years, UNESCO has made notable contributions to intellectual co-operation among the
nations in the field of education. It has served as a source and sounding board for ideas
and concepts such as lifelong education, functional literacy, learning to be, learning without
frontiers, the learning society, learning to live together and many others. Without UNESCO,
these concepts, so important for education, would probably have been restricted to narrow
circles of experts. UNESCO has also played an important role as an intellectual forum and
laboratory of ideas. Far from being removed from reality, many of the important studies that
UNESCO has commissioned or prepared over the years have been a response to major concerns and
crises. The report of the Faure Commission, Learning to Be,
was, for instance, a studied reaction to the events of 1968 in which a new generation of youth
challenged the established order and questioned both its viability and its morality. The Faure
report strongly recommended that the best way of dealing with a materialistic world is through
humanistic education, an education that must enable every person ‘to solve his own problems,
make his own decisions and shoulder his own responsibilities’. Some twenty-five years later,
the Delors Commission examined anew the future demands that would be placed upon education and,
in the post cold-war context characterized by strife within nations and among peoples,
emphasized the need for ‘learning to live together, learning to live with others’.
UNESCO, in brief, has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to respond to
changing environments while preserving its fundamental principles and values.
The definition of education in this review of UNESCO’s action is not limited by administrative boundaries.
Education is broadly defined as the development of understanding and knowledge in all areas.
Thus, for instance, science education, whether situated in the Education Sector, or in the
Science Sector, remains a part of this assessment.
Yet, if UNESCO has often stood for the intellectual and the intangible - for ideas, concepts and values - its work in education has also had a preeminently practical quality, as many of the articles that follow clearly demonstrate. For every great conference or major publication, there have been 100 or more workshops, project proposals and working documents sponsored or issued by the Organization. In the aftermath of the Second World War, UNESCO became actively involved in the reconstruction of education systems, a task that continues to this very day. UNESCO has, inter alia, worked to improve the planning and management of education systems, to develop national capacities to train educational personnel, to support the education of disadvantaged groups (victims of war, refugees, migrants, street children, handicapped), to promote the teaching of science and technology, to encourage innovation and the use of new media and technologies in education. UNESCO has also seen itself as the voice and advocate of the teaching professions. Over the years, its message has been that however education systems may change, the relation between a committed teacher and a motivated learner is the heart and soul of education: where it exists, failures will be few; where it is not present, success will be scarce.
This volume, 50 Years for Education - and the CD-ROMs that
accompany it - published to celebrate the fiftieth Anniversary of UNESCO, are directed to a broad and varied public.
For historians and a far larger public interested in the history of the epoch they have lived in,
the volume will reveal how developments in education have reflected the changing ideologies
and political circumstances of the past half century. For researchers of education and educators,
it will be a reminder of the contours that have marked their professional lives: the debates
and controversies, the programmes launched, the successes achieved and failures endured, and,
above all, the continuing, if ever changing, challenge that education poses to all societies.
For decision-makers at all levels, this volume is proof that ‘where there is a will, there is
a way’. Success in the various projects discussed has, in general, depended far more upon a
firm commitment than upon favourable circumstances. Finally, for youth concerned with
developments in education or with the origins and work of UNESCO, this volume may help
to explain how we got to where we are and, just possibly, suggest how coming generations may
continue the progress achieved and, where necessary, correct the errors and shortcomings of
the past and present.
The CD-ROMs bring to life in sound, image and text the activities, events
and people that have shaped UNESCO’s action in education.
Among the voices and images included are those of people
of world renown, such as Léon Blum, Charles de Gaulle, Indira Gandhi, Félix Houphouët-Boigny,
Jomo Kenyatta, Jawaharlal Nehru, Pablo Neruda, Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget and Eleanor
Roosevelt, as well as so many others who have worked tirelessly for the education of humanity.
The preparation of this work would not have been possible without the participation and contributions received from a large number of organizations and individuals: National Commissions and Non-Governmental Organizations, leaders in education and other fields, former and serving members of the Secretariat of UNESCO.
The list of names, given in annex, of those having contributed to the preparation of this
multimedia package is far from complete.
To those who appear in this list, and equally to
those who do not, I wish to express my gratitude, especially to the authors of
the various written documents, photos, films, videos or sound recordings, to The UNESCO
Courier and UNESCO Sources, to the UNESCO Archives, the Office of Public Information,
the Division of Statistics and, last but not least, to the team which, for several months,
has devoted its efforts to carrying this task through to a successful conclusion.
