1948 International Congress of Representatives of Universities, Utrecht, The Netherlands 1950 International Association of Universities (IAU) created, Paris 1960-1970 Conferences of Ministers of Education and those Responsible for the Promotion of Science and Technology in relation to Development (in Africa, Nairobi, 1968; in Latin America and the Caribbean, Caracas, 1971) 1962 Conference on the development of Higher Education in Africa, Tananarive

HIGHER EDUCATION AND TODAY’S GLOBAL CHALLENGES UNESCO has had a standing commitment to foster the development of higher education and research since its foundation over fifty years ago. As we approach the end of this century and prepare to enter a new millennium, we are witnessing an unprecedented growth of enrolment figures as well as an unprecedented diversification of types of higher education institutions. There is also increased awareness of its vital role for economic and social development. Yet, higher education is confronted with critical issues in practically all countries of the world. Although enrolments are on the increase, the capacity for public support is declining and the enormous gap between developing and developed countries with regard to higher learning and research, which had begun to be reduced in the 1960s, is often widening. UNESCO’s activities in higher education focus on three main objectives. The first, which goes back to the 1950s, resulted from the function that higher education institutions were – and still are – called upon to fulfil within the overall education system in respect of training educational personnel (management staff, as well as teachers) and in respect of research in all the Organization’s fields of competence. The second objective corresponds to UNESCO’s mandate in the sphere of intellectual co-operation; today, just as in 1946, the challenge is how to strengthen institutions, such as associations of universities, at the international and regional levels, among developed and developing countries, and especially how to accelerate the exchange of knowledge and enhance co-operation and international understanding. The third objective, linked to the second was – and still is – to facilitate teacher and student mobility by encouraging the recognition of studies and diplomas between institutions and countries. Furthermore, the Organization has been unceasing in its endeavours to support multidisciplinary activities devoted to the study and to the solution of worldwide economic, social and cultural development problems. The rapidly expanding UNITWIN/UNESCO-Chairs programme is aimed at reinforcing UNESCO’s action in pursuing these objectives.

1948 UNIVERSITY PROBLEMS REVIEWED AT THE UTRECHT CONGRESS Pointing out that U.S. policy is to provide higher education to as many people as possible rather than to a select few, Dr Thomas R. McConnell, of the University of Michigan (U.S.A.) declared: ‘In England, less than 2% of university-age young people attended the universities there in 1947, whereas about 15% of the 18-21 year age group attended institutions of higher learning in the United States.’ Professor Georges Scelle of the Faculty of Law, University of Paris, on the other hand, [...] ‘We see a danger in an inflation of diplomas which might deprive them of all their value, or even an inflation of the number of students. The result would be not the selection of an elite, but a system of ‘mass education’, which is inconsistent with the very notion of higher education.’ Professor Jan B. Kozak, of Charles (Caroline) University, Prague: ‘Any help from international organizations will be keenly appreciated; it will constitute one of the best investments ever made.’ He asked UNESCO to make this need widely known. The same story of overcrowded universities, lack of teachers, destroyed or outmoded educational equipment was told by representatives of many countries in their reports on the conditions of higher education in their native lands. For the most part, institutions were eagerly seeking to overcome these deficiencies and meet the needs of expanding enrolment. As Dr Atta Akrawi, Chief of the Division of Higher Education, Iraq, pointed out: ‘The great influx of students into institutions of higher learning and their insistent demands for admission in even larger numbers [...] is a phenomenon here to stay in most countries, as deep social forces are at work, and the sooner the universities face this situation squarely the better.’ The Conference recognized that the role of the university was, to a large degree, determined by the attitude of each nation. But it urged that ‘universities should consider afresh the part they must play in economic and social education [...] that many students capable of higher education still lack the opportunity of achieving it [...] then no university can afford to neglect the moral and aesthetic development of its students and special emphasis must be laid on the importance of community life [...] that much greater effort should be expended than at present on research in the social sciences and creative work in the humanities [...] and that the university has a wide social responsibility to the nation and beyond the nation to humanity at large.’ The conference was unanimous in its recommendations that international co-operation among universities is desirable and necessary. In fact, it initiated the first steps essential to provide the necessary machinery for such co-operation. It set up an Interim Committee of ten members (nominating nine) to draw up a proposed constitution for an international association of universities. The Committee will also administer an International Universities Bureau to be created immediately and plan for another world conference of universities sometime after August, 1950. The UNESCO Courier, September 1948.

Karl Jaspers (Germany) Philosopher To the extent that the university seeks truth through science, research is its fundamental task. Since that task presupposes the passing on of knowledge, research is bound up with teaching. Teaching means allowing students to take part in the research process. Die Idee der Universität, 1923. Translated into English in 1959 Ronald E. Walker (Australia) Chairman of the Executive Board of UNESCO from 1947 to 1948 Universities can, and should, play a major role in the development of UNESCO, and the work undertaken at the Utrecht conference may well bring into closer relation with UNESCO forces for education, science and culture that are inherent in the higher education of the world. Presentation of the Report of the Director-General, Third session of the General Conference of UNESCO, Beirut, November 1948 Constantine K. Zurayk (Lebanon) President of the International Association of Universities from 1965 to 1970 The co-operation which daily occurs between the International Association of Universities and UNESCO stems from their deep affinities and reciprocal relations which could be said to be paradoxical were it not for their spiritual nature. For, if the association owes its genesis to UNESCO, is not UNESCO directly born of that aspiration for universality which, throughout time, the universities have formulated and, with different levels of success, incarnated? Message to UNESCO on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Organization, 4 November 1966