UNESCO IN THE WORLD — UNESCO IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA

1981 World Conference on Actions and Strategies for Education, Prevention and Integration, Torremolinos, Spain 1981-1988 UNESCO National Commissions’ joint study programme 1990 The UNESCO ‘Children of Chernobyl’ Project launched 1991 Regional Consultation Meeting on Co-operation for Reinforcing and Developing Education in Europe, Paris CORDEE launched 1992 Implementing the Programme for Central and Eastern European Development (PROCEED) International Conference on Academic Freedoms and University Autonomy, organized by CEPES in Sinaia, Romania

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION From the end of the 1970s, following the Helsinki Accord and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), several programmes were to be dedicated to educational reform in Europe, in particular the series of All-European Conferences of Directors of Educational Research Institutes organized by UIE and the Council of Europe, (16) the programme of joint studies in education of European National Commissions (17) and CODIESEE (Co-operation in Research and Development for Educational Innovation in South-East Europe). The latter was established in 1978 as one of the five networks of educational innovation for development. CODIESEE is a sub-regional network which initially linked research centres from six Southern and Eastern-European countries. Four more countries joined in 1985. (18) CODIESEE implements studies conducted by its twenty-four member research institutes. The programme, agreed upon by common accord, addresses the role of research and development in innovation. (19) In addition to its publications, CODIESEE also organizes study tours for researchers from national institutes. Noting the changes having taken place in Europe since 1989, a new initiative - CORDEE (Co-operation for Reinforcing the Development of Education in Europe) - was launched in 1991. CORDEE offers European Institutes of Education, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, a harmonious framework for action, particularly in respect of the development of civic education. (20) The Institute of Educational Sciences in Bucharest publishes a CORDEE newsletter.

LEARNING THROUGH GAMES... AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT IN EUROPE through pilot projects implemented within the framework of UNESCO’s ‘Associated Schools’ Project. Pupils, students and teachers from countries neighbouring on one another become aware of ecological problems and learn to better understand the rich cultural heritage they share. The Baltic Sea Project The Blue Danube River Project The North Sea Project The South Eastern Mediterranean Project, etc.

The International Conference on Academic Freedom and University Autonomy organized by CEPES in Sinaia, Romania (1992) urged UNESCO to prepare an international instrument for the protection and promotion of these values.

UNESCO-CHERNOBYL PROGRAMME Main activities in education The UNESCO-Chernobyl programme was launched to mitigate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident which occurred in 1986. It combines activities to meet the priority curative, and long-term economic and social development needs of the concerned Member States. The programme has procured approximately $6 million worth of extra-budgetary funds and donated goods and services, and is undertaking currently more than twenty-five development co-operation projects in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, with the participation of public and private entities and individuals - many of them volunteers - from more than fifteen countries. Major activities include the training of six teacher trainers in the specialized languages of such disciplines as ecology and radio-biology; the supply of educational equipment for schools built to receive children displaced by the accident, and of special equipment to research institutions and clinics (the latter in co-operation with Canada and the European Union); the developing of teaching material in co-operation with an eleven-country UNESCO Associated Schools Project network on ‘Energy, development and the environment’; the opening of nine psychological rehabilitation community centres ($1.2 million), and the training of 140 teachers in the counselling of child victims. Providing materials for education and sport to the Gomel Orphanage (UNESCO-Chernobyl programme).

Ingrid Eide Sociologist, former Deputy Minister of Education of Norway New learning contexts are being created or rediscovered, with the traditional school, though dominant, as only one of many possible forms.[...] The fact that learning takes place in all areas, and that they are actually interdependent and interact, has been frequently overlooked. ‘Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe’, Prospects, Vol. XII, No. 1, 1982 Torsten Husén (Sweden) Chairman of the Governing Board of IIEP from 1970 to 1980 Over the next couple of decades, when the formal educational system can be expected to operate under the auspices of austerity [...] a more realistic frame of mind would be called for with regard to expectations about what education can achieve. More realism is also called for in looking at education as an equalizer of life-changes and in expecting it to be a panacea for problems essentially social and economic by nature. Present Trends in Education, Prospects, Vol. XII, No. 1, 1982 Christoffer Taxell Minister of Education of Finland from 1987 to 1990. President of MINEDEUROPE IV There was a new concentration on the environment [...] all discussion concerning the environment was eventually dominated by a merging of the humanistic and technological aspects of education. Speech to MINEDEUROPE IV, Paris, September 1988

PROCEED Programme for Central and Eastern European Development PROCEED is an interdisciplinary programme co-ordinating UNESCO’s activities in Central and Eastern Europe and in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. Launched in 1992, the programme covers all UNESCO’s main fields of competence. PROCEED’s coordination efforts focus on the priority needs of the region and its sub-regions, in particular the re-establishment and consolidation of democracy; pluralism in beliefs, attitudes, and institutions; the expression of identity and the protection of minorities and human rights; and human resources development. Educational activities in given countries focus on the reconstruction of the education system and policy advice, the reform of higher education and teacher-training, secondary technical and vocational education, the renewal of curricula and teaching methods, and education for specific target groups.

                               

FOOTNOTES:

(17) Between 1981 and 1988, with the assistance of UNESCO, each participating National Commission co-ordinated studies on one of ten themes: careers guidance, use of the media and information technology, participation of civil society in educational planning, cognitive development, etc.

(18) Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Rumania, Turkey and Yugoslavia were founder members, later joined by Italy, Malta, Spain and Portugal.

(19) Four main themes were retained: exchange of information on innovations, lifelong education, education and work, and new technologies.

(20) In 1995, the theme of a meeting of CORDEE in Vienna was civic education in Central and Eastern Europe.