1950 The UNESCO/UNRWA Programme to provide education to Palestinian refugees begins 1952 ASFEC - Arab States Fundamental Education Centre created at Sirs-el-Layyan (Egypt) 1954 Conference on Free and Compulsory Education in the Arab Countries of the Middle East, Cairo 1957 Conference on Technical and Vocational training in the Arab Countries of the Middle East, ILO/ UNESCO/the Arab League, Cairo 1958 First regional Conference of National Commissions of the Arab States, Fez, Morocco 1960 First Regional Conference of Ministers of Education (MINEDARAB I, Beirut), followed by conferences in Tripoli 1966, Marrakech 1970, Abu Dhabi 1977, Cairo 1994

MODERNIZATION AND REFORM OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM TO PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT By holding the Third Session of its General Conference in Beirut in 1948 UNESCO underscored the importance it accorded to co-operation with the Arab States who, in 1945, had attested their unity by creating the Arab League. In its efforts to promote development through education in this region, UNESCO has worked closely and constantly with regional organizations in the Arab world, for instance, ALECSO, ISESCO and the Arab Bureau for Education in the Gulf States (ABEGS), as well as with funding agencies such as the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) and the Arab Gulf Fund for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND). (1) THE EARLY ACTIVITIES An Arab States Fundamental Education Centre for rural areas (ASFEC) was created in 1952 at Sirs-el-Layyan in the Nile Delta. (2) Its principal objectives were to train educational personnel, produce teaching materials and carry out technical research required to implement its activities which benefited from the participation of international specialists from other agencies (WHO, ILO, FAO, UN). ASFEC kept pace with the evolution of UNESCO’s strategies in its specific spheres of action and became a regional centre for community development in 1960 and a regional centre for functional literacy in rural areas in 1968. UNESCO’s assistance to Palestinian Arab refugees began soon after the 1948 General Conference in Beirut with the opening of tent schools in refugee camps. (3) Since 1950, UNESCO has headed UNRWA’s education department and been responsible for its technical and vocational programmes. By the end of 1993, the UNESCO/UNRWA education programme had been used by 11,000 teachers in 640 schools and 8 technical and vocational training centres to teach 400,000 refugee pupils living in Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, or still resident in the occupied territories. In 1994, a plan of action and co-operation was signed between the Organization and the Palestinian Authority. Within this framework, between 1994 and 1996, UNESCO mobilized over $4 million of extrabudgetary funds to assist in establishing a Ministry of Education and a Curriculum Development Centre.

1951 Inaugural session of the Egyptian National Commission for UNESCO The Egyptian National Commission for UNESCO was inaugurated in Cairo on December 28 by UNESCO’s Director-General, Jaime Torres Bodet, in the presence of members of the Egyptian Government, including the Ministers for Education, Social Affairs and Economics. In his address UNESCO’s Director-General appealed for support of UNESCO’s work for peace, for, he said ‘There is no man nor people in the world so rich as to having nothing to gain from the help of others, nor any man or people so poor as to having nothing to lose in a world-wide conflagration. Whatever its result, the final balance sheet of any war would reveal appalling loss. Not only would lives and wealth be thrown away, but mankind itself would emerge with shrunken stature’. [...] A warm tribute was paid by the Director-General to Egypt’s Minister of Education, Dr Taha Hussein Pasha, whom, he said ‘has accomplished in an extra-ordinarily brief space of time results which display a keen awareness of our age’s tasks.’ The UNESCO Courier, February 1951.

HARMONIZING THE EXPANSION OF EDUCATION SYSTEMS At the end of the 1950s, the Beirut Conference recognized that the rapid expansion of education systems had produced some inequity and imbalance: for example, in the rigidity of curricula, between the different levels and branches of teaching (for every 100 pupils at primary school, there were 16 at secondary school and 2 in technical and vocational training) and infrastructures (prestigious buildings side by side with many schools in varying states of decay). Educational planning was therefore given the highest priority and, as of 1961, UNESCO set up an Arab States Centre for Advanced Teaching for Educational Personnel (ASCATEP) (4) in Beirut which was rapidly to become a regional centre for educational planning and management. All the regional conferences of ministers convened either by UNESCO or by the Arab League (5) since 1960 have stressed the need to improve the quality of in-school and out-of-school education and to diversify secondary education and technical and vocational training. The 1966 Tripoli Conference spurred the Member States of the region to commit themselves to providing primary education for all girls and boys by 1980. (6) Besides planning, between 1960 and 1980 within the framework of projects financed from extra-budgetary sources, UNESCO contributed to the creation of national institutes to train the managerial staff required for the rational use of natural resources and for rural development (institutes of technology and faculties of science) (7) and to the establishment of teacher-training colleges (institutes of education) for secondary education and technical and vocational training. (8) In 1976 and 1978, two conventions on the Recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees in higher education concerning the region were adopted. (9)

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE UNRWA/UNESCO INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, BEIRUT This Institute was founded in 1964 by UNRWA, UNESCO and the Swiss Government The first two courses at the institute began respectively in October 1964 and in May 1965. 800 pupils registered for the first course and 700 for the second. Courses are of 2 years duration. Instruction is intended for teachers with a secondary education but no pro-fessional training and it combines both direct and indirect methods. Indirect instruction is carried on through correspondence courses (one lesson with a written assignment each week). Teachers also receive filmstrips, recordings, lists of recommended books and an educational periodical, and they can make use of a mobile lending library. Direct instruction is given by regional representatives of the Institute. These are qualified and experienced teachers, most of them former heads of schools or teaching inspectors who have followed special courses at the Institute. There are at present 20 of these represent-atives stationed in the host countries where each is responsible for 70 to 80 teachers. One regional representative each week inspects 8 to 10 classes to evaluate the work of the teachers and give personal guidance. In addition, he organizes three meetings of 20 to 30 teachers to discuss and correct the weekly assignment and to demonstrate audio-visual materials. The UNESCO Chronicle, Vol. XI, No. 10, 1965.

Asma Fahmy Delegate of the Government of Egypt to the Fifteenth International Conference on Public Education, IBE, 1952. Under the new law, all first stage schools have been unified to give equal opportunity to all, boys and girls alike and to remove class barriers in this initial stage of popular education. The Conference Report Abed Mzali General Secretary of National Education, Youth and Sports, Delegate of the Tunisian Government to the Twenty-first International Conference on Public Education, IBE, 1958. Tunisia's educational philosophy may be said to be based on two principles: the defence and development of the national culture, and the opening up of a broad view of the outside world encouraging friendship and co-operation with all peoples. The Conference Report René Maheu (France) Director-General of UNESCO from 1962 to 1974 I would like to say how very much I welcome the measures taken by the Arab States on behalf of the access of girls and women to education. The provision of educational opportunities for women is a duty in respect of the rights of the individual and at the same time essential for the economic and social development of the community. Address to the Conference of Ministers of Education And Ministers responsible for Economic Planning in the Arab States, Tripoli, 1966

                               

FOOTNOTES:

(1) AGFUND supports UNESCO’s efforts to assist the least advanced countries whether in the Arab States, in Africa or Asia.

(2) ASFEC: Arab States Fundamental Education Centre. The Centre is a field unit, endowed with two consultative bodies, the Arab States Committee and the Intersecretariat Committee.

(3) 3/C Resolutions 1.7 and 8.3. At the end of 1949 UNESCO had provided schooling to 21,000 pupils taught by 500 teachers.

(4) ASCATEP (Arab States Centre for Advanced Teaching for Educational Personnel) is a regional institution whose Governing Board is chaired by the Minister of Education of the Lebanon.

(5) Conferences of Arab Ministers of Education organized by the Arab League in 1953, 1964, 1966.

(6) Ten years after the Cairo Conference.

(7) Engineering schools in Algiers, Benghazi, Damascus and Mohammadia; petroleum engineering institutes in Baghdad and Riyad; Science faculty in Amman.

(8) Teacher-training colleges or institutes of education, Aden, Amman, Baghdad, Bahrein, Oman, Qatar, Rabat, Ramallkah, Riyad, Tripoli, Tunis; Technical and vocational teacher-training colleges in Beirut, Oran, etc.

(9) The 1976 Convention adopted in Nice, France, concerns the Arab and European States bordering on the Mediterranean, and that of 1978 adopted in Paris concerns all the Arab States.