1952 A pilot training centre for rural education teachers in Ubol (Thailand), and a pilot teacher-training college in Lafond (Haiti) created 1953 International Conference on Education, 16th session on the theme ‘Primary Teacher- Training’, IBE, Geneva 1954 International Conference on Education, 17th session on the theme ‘Secondary Teacher-Training’, IBE, Geneva 1960 Convention and Recommendation Against Discrimination in Education, UNESCO General Conference, Paris

TODAY, AS IN TIMES PAST, RISING TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE The quality and relevance of education greatly depend on the initial and further training of personnel (teachers, (1) but also school principals, educational counsellors, inspectors), as well as their material working conditions, and their relationships with their local and national environments. Faced with these problems since its creation, UNESCO’s main concern has always been to contribute to satisfying needs – both quantitative and qualitative – in respect of educational personnel by training enough teachers, educational administrators and management personnel with the right qualifications. It has been possible to provide such training by creating and strengthening national institutions (teacher-training colleges), often in combination with research on the curriculum and methods and techniques of teaching, taking into account economic, social, cultural, scientific and technological change. Concurrently, Member States have been encouraged to apply standards linked to the status of teachers, their conditions of work, rights and responsibilities. (2) Co-operation between UNESCO and non-governmental associations of teachers (3) is a very important aspect in the implementation of the Organization’s programme in this domain.

JEAN AMOS COMENIUS A teacher, forerunner of UNESCO by Jean Thomas* THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OPERA DIDACTICA OMNIA Why is it that UNESCO has deemed it so important to take part in the celebration of this anniversary? It is interesting to quote a few axioms from The Great Didactica and The Pampaedia which might well be inscribed at the head of the principal chapters of UNESCO’s programme. [...] ‘All life is a school for every man, from the cradle to the grave.’ Is this not the UNESCO principle of never ending education, the education of adults as well as youth. ‘First of all, it is essential that all persons learn to read and write.’ Is this not the motto of the struggle against illiteracy? ‘All young people of both sexes should be sent to public schools’. Is this not what UNESCO has translated as the development of universal, free and compulsory primary education? ‘No one should be excluded, even less prevented, from pursuing wisdom and cultivating the mind.’ Is this not the principle of equal access to education and culture without distinction of race, fortune, creed or social origin? And did not Comenius go so far as to conceive of a ‘Council of Light’, an international organization for education, science and culture, which represents a distant pre-figuration of UNESCO? From The UNESCO Courier, November 1957. * Jean Thomas, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO from 1950 to 1960

FIRST OF ALL, REDUCING THE LACK OF QUALIFIED TEACHERS... Between 1946 and 1965 the lack of qualified teachers was a problem shared by many Member States, where the demand for education was rising at a spectacular rate due to a variety of phenomena: education systems destroyed or weakened by the Second World War, or in an embryonic state in countries in the throes of development, decolonization, and even democratization of education at the primary, then at the secondary level, demographic growth rates, economic, social and cultural change. As early as the beginning of the 1950s, UNESCO began to encourage Member States to study what measures needed to be taken in this respect, (4) as well as to carry out ex-periments and set up pilot projects, combining the development of curricula better adapted to needs (basic community education) with training teachers better prepared to contribute to local development. This same approach has been applied to secondary education where improvements in teaching a variety of subjects (5) (history, geography, civics, languages, exact and natural sciences) are encouraged. These were innovations often initiated or introduced by institutions other than UNESCO, co-operating with the Organization.

Ellen Wilkinson (United Kingdom) Former Minister of Education, President of the Preparatory Conference establishing UNESCO On 16 November 1945, Ellen Wilkinson closed the meeting after recalling the intellectuals who had lost their lives in the war: We who are carrying on their work [...] are doing it in the hope that we shall carry on the flame of their souls and spirits in the children and young people who are committed to our care. Also at this solemn moment we say to the teachers of the world that those who fight in the struggle against ignorance and illiteracy do not fight alone; they fight with us behind them, with this great international Organization for them to appeal to. William G. Carr (United States) Former Executive Secretary, National Education Association, participated in 1944-1946 in the preparation of the Statutes of the United Nations and of UNESCO It will be a mark of statesmanship and vision if the governments who send delegations to the meetings of UNESCO will remember the millions of ordinary teachers who desperately want to understand UNESCO and to help in its work. UNESCO Conferences at the Sorbonne, Paris, November 1946 Jean Piaget (Switzerland) Director of the IBE from 1929 to 1967 The links between teaching and psychology are complex: teaching is an art, whereas psychology is a science, but while the art of educating presupposes unique innate abilities, it needs to be developed by the requisite knowledge of the human being who is to be educated. Address by the Director of IBE, Eleventh International Conference on Public Education, IBE, 1948

                               

FOOTNOTES:

(1) The UNESCO Statistical Yearbook estimates the total number of teachers to be nearly 50 million (40 million in 1980), out of a world population of about 5.5 billion people, giving an average of one teacher per 112 inhabitants. In 1965, there was one secondary school teacher for 10,000 people in Europe and one for 150,000 in Africa.

(2) Joint UNESCO-ILO Recommendation of 1966.

(3) In particular:

• Education International (EI)
• resulting from the merging of WCOTP and IFFTU – which represents 272 national organizations in 146 countries or territories for a total of approximately 23 million registered members, either teachers or other educational personnel. EI co-operates with UNESCO notably by contributing to a large-scale campaign to promote education for all and teacher training, as well as to programmes for a culture of peace and non-violence, using new communciation technologies.
• World Confederation of Teachers (WCT).
• World Federation of Teachers Unions (WFTU).
• International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET), a non-governmental organization primarily concerned with improving basic and continuous training of teachers.

(4) The particular concern of UNESCO’s activities was to support Member States in the implementation of the Recommendations of the International Conference on Education drawn up on primary and secondary teaching and/or specifically teacher-training for these two levels (Recommendations Nos. 32, 36, 38). Teachers working in higher education are thus only concerned to the extent that they are also teacher-trainers, as are other educational personnel working at first and second levels.

(5) Overall action in respect of the elaboration and revision of the general structure of curricula began in 1954 with the creation of an International Consultative Committee which, after having examined primary level curricula between 1955 and 1958, then proceeded to look into those at secondary level.

Caption:Representatives of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession (WCOP) meet Vittorino Veronese, Director-General of UNESCO, Paris, 1959.