UNESCO IN THE WORLD — UNESCO IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA

Since 1993 Aid and rehabilitation programmes in former Yugoslavia 1994 ‘Save the Baltic’ project launched World Conference on Special Needs Education, Salamanca, Spain 1995 European Conference on Curriculum Development: Civic education in Central and Eastern Europe, Vienna 1997 There are fifty Member States in the Europe region within UNESCO

CONSOLIDATE DEMOCRACY: ACTION TO AID COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION In the 1990s, as at the end of the 1940s, UNESCO is committed to the reconstruction and consolidation of peace and democracy in Europe. An interdisciplinary Programme for Central and Eastern European Development (PROCEED), launched in 1992, focuses on adapting UNESCO’s activities to situations specific to newly independent countries and to countries in transition in the region. (21) Efforts are directed towards restoring and consolidating democracy and the respect of human rights. In education, emphasis is placed on the evaluation and reconstruction of educational systems, the reform of higher education and teacher training, and technical and vocational training, (22) as well as on the modernization of curricula and teaching methods. In co-operation with the United Nations (UNPROFOR), UNESCO assists in the education of refugees in the former Yugoslavian countries.

Conference on Curriculum Development: Civic Education in Central and Eastern Europe, Vienna, 1995. Speech by Elisabeth Gehrer, Minister of education and Cultural Affaris, Austria.
LITERACY IN EUROPE

CO-OPERATION FOR DEVELOPMENT 1946-1996 *	Gerard Hinteregger (Germany) Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Ours is an era of rapid technological change and development, and there is perhaps no better example of this than the new information and telecommunication technologies. Address to MINEDEUROPE IV, Paris, September 1988 Colin N. Power (Australia) Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO, since 1989 In many respects the dramatic changes underway in their education systems are not unlike the changes and the challenges which faced Europe as a whole in 1946. The process going on in education raises some fundamental questions which are important for all European countries, East and West, North and South. Opening Address to the Regional Consultation Meeting on Co-operation for Reinforcing the Development of Education in Europe, Paris, February 1991 Elisabeth Gehrer Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs of Austria since 1995 Civic education is a condition both for the personal development of the individual and for the development of society as a whole. In our understanding, civic education needs to communicate values such as human rights, democracy, liberty, equality, equity, and peace. Civic education refers to the understanding of political, cultural and economic life. At the same time it aims to encourage individual social responsibility. Opening Address to the European Conference on Curriculum Development: Civic Education in Central and Eastern Europe, Vienna, October 1995
OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN EUROPE UNESCO’s operational activities, which are the most spectacular aspect of the Organization’s work and which at present absorb the greater part of its available resources, are mainly carried out in the developing countries outside Europe.[...] But, apart from the fact that operational activities are far from being the whole of UNESCO’s work, which first manifests itself in intellectual co-operation and then culminates in moral action, UNESCO’s mission is, essentially, to bring Member States, all Member States, to an appreciation of universal values, so that they can rise above the distinction between those who give and those who receive, by participating in a common enterprise involving the whole of mankind. Opening address by René Maheu, Director-General of UNESCO, to the first Conference of Ministers of Education of European Member States (MINEDEUROPE I), Vienna, November 1967.
A few projects Greece: Training technical teachers for industrial schools, Athens. Turkey: Engineering faculty at the Middle-Eastern Technical University, Ankara Spain: National Centre for Educational Development (CENIDE) Hungary: National Centre for Educational Technology (OOK)
TO KNOW MORE (see also CD-ROM, Vol.I)

                               

FOOTNOTES:

* Cumulative, in millions of current dollars (not re-evaluated) utilized for the implementation of projects involving UNESCO.

(21) A section of the World Education Report, 1993 is devoted to the situation in countries in transition in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

(22) In 1995, within the framework of UNEVOC, a seminar was organized in Toulouse (France) on technical education and vocational training in countries in a state of transition.

TO KNOW MORE (see also CD-ROM, Vol. I)

• Prospects and Tasks of Educational Development in Europe at the Dawn of a New Millenium. Fourth Conference of Ministers of Education of Member States of the Europe Region, Paris, 21-27 September 1988. (English, French)
• A New Meaning for Education: Looking at the Europe Region. Paris, UNESCO, 1990. (Educational studies and documents, New Series, 58). (English, French)
• The Open Door: Pan-European Academic Co-operation: An Analysis and a Proposal. Denis Kallen and Guy Neave. Bucharest, UNESCO/CEPES, 1991. (English, French)
• Pluralistic Education in Western Europe on the Threshold of 1993. Egle Becchi, Prospects, Vol. XXII, No. 2. Paris, UNESCO, 1992. (Arabic, English, French, Spanish)
• Curriculum Development : Civic Education in Central and Eastern Europe. European conference, Vienna, 12-14 October 1995. Final report. Vienna, UNESCO/Austrian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, 1996. (English)
• Reinforcing Partnerships and Co-operation for the Development of Education in Europe. UNESCO’s Educational Activities in the Europe Region, 1994 - 1997. Paris, UNESCO, 1997. (English, French, Russian)