1947 Mission on fundamental education, China 1950-1957 Participation in the activities of UNKRA 1952 Regional Conference on Free and Compulsory Education in South Asia and the Pacific, Bombay 1955 International Institute of Child Study, Bangkok 1960 The ‘Karachi Plan’ for universal, compulsory and free primary education by 1980 1961 Establishment of four regional centres Bangkok: Regional Office for Primary Education, which became the Regional Office for Education (ROEAP) in 1978 and the Principal Regional Office (PROAP) in 1986 Quezon City (Philippines): Asian Institute for the Training of Teacher-Educators New Delhi: Asian Institute for Educational Planning and Management Bandung (Indonesia): Regional Centre for Research on School Buildings, transferred to Colombo in 1966

CO-OPERATION BASED ON RECIPROCITY AND PARTICIPATION In its early decades, UNESCO was the only organization that could provide a framework for regional co-operation in the field of education. In its activities, it took into account the three fundamental characteristics of the region: its immensity, its diversity and its unity. There were seventeen Member States in the region when the Bangkok Office was set up; now there are forty-two. THE FIRST STEPS (1946-1960) Apart from the establishment of the International Institute for Child Study, (1) the first steps (2) took the form of piecemeal co-operation activities with Member States. (3)They were carried out with resources that were often modest. The extension of rather more ambitious programmes to other countries, such as the experiments in fundamental education conducted in China, (4) came up against the barrier of the multiplicity of languages and cultures. (5) Throughout this period UNESCO was to develop within the region its capacity to muster resources for co-operation, including funds from other United Nations agencies, bilateral assistance sources and foundations, which had the effect of directing its attention towards general policies and planning.

THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD STUDY, BANGKOK The decision to establish an International Institute of Child Study (IICS) was taken by the UNESCO General Conference in 1952. The operative decision reads: ‘In 1953 [...] it is planned to select and train the essential personnel for the establishment in 1954 in Asia of a research and training centre in educational psychology for experienced teachers and an associated field project of educational guidance.The object of this unit and its associated field project is to combine the advanced training of teachers with fundamental and applied research, and to do both in the light of a continuing study of a given culture. It is hoped that the unit will produce a small but steady flow of highly trained educators each year, who will be able practically to apply the findings of psychological research to the educational needs of their own countries.’

1960-1972: DEVELOPMENT OF A REGIONAL APPROACH Following a UNESCO survey on the educational needs of the countries of the region, a meeting of Asian Member States (6) held in Karachi adopted a ‘Plan for the Provision of Universal, Compulsory and Free Primary Education’. (7) The Plan defined long-term objectives, quantified for each country, with a view to introducing a system of universal, compulsory and free primary education for all by 1980, and estimated the financial and personnel requirements. With its concerted programme for action designed to secure funding from both national budgets and external sources, the Karachi Plan gave a tremendous boost to education in Asia and became a model for other regions. To assist Member States in developing the various elements of the Plan, UNESCO set up three regional institutions (for teacher-training, school buildings and planning) and a Regional Office responsible for documentation and co-ordination (8) in Bangkok. The Meeting of Ministers of Education of Asian Member States - the first of a long series - held in Tokyo in 1962, reviewed the Karachi Plan in the context of economic and social development (9) and established an intergovernmental framework for regional co-operation. Japan offered its support as an industrialized country.

THE UNESCO BANGKOK OFFICE PROAP UNESCO established its Bangkok Office in 1961 as the Asian Regional Office for Primary and Compulsory Education.Thirteen years later, the Office was extended both in terms of its scope and coverage - given the charge to implement activities emanating from all the divisions of the Education Sector and to cover the countries of the Pacific region (then known as Oceania). Today, the Office covers all fields of competence of the Organization in its capacity of principal Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

Jaime Torres Bodet (Mexico) Director-General of UNESCO from 1948 to 1952 Two thirds of the human race live in fear of enslavement - enslavement by ignorance. Wherever any man suffers, there all humanity suffers. Convinced of this undeniable truth, you have met together to fight against illiteracy [...] India offers a vast field for international cooperation. Message to the Mysore Seminar on Rural Adult Education for Community Action, 1949 Lin Yutang (China) Philosopher and author, former Director of the Arts and Letters Division, UNESCO It is quite apparent that the East needs the West and the West needs the East, each in its groping toward a more satisfactory design for living. The UNESCO Courier, September 1948 Clarence E.Beeby (New Zealand) Assistant Director-General of UNESCO’s Department of Education, from 1948 to 1949 One of the main functions of the Education Department of UNESCO is to [...] make it easier for educators in one country to know what is going on in others, and to apply the knowledge to the solution of their own problems. The UNESCO Courier, February 1949 S.Hayato Ikeda Prime Minister of Japan in 1962 I am glad to believe that this meeting will mark a big step forward in the progress of education in the Asian region, which is to provide the very basis for its economic development. Opening Address to the Meeting of Ministers of Education of Asian Member States participating in the Karachi Plan

THE KARACHI MEETING, 1960 The background to the meeting was significant. First, the General Conference decided that the Director-General should conduct ‘preliminary studies in 1959-1960 with a view to initiating a major project on the extension of compulsory primary education in Asian countries’ and the meeting in Karachi was a follow-up to this decision. Second, the meeting was the climax of a ten-year effort by UNESCO and Asia in primary education. The Karachi meeting thus points to the way in which UNESCO can successfully discharge its trust and mission - bringing its Member States together to deal with a concrete problem, helping them establish a plan of action to which their resources are pledged and mobilized, and so aiding in the development of international co-operation and understanding. ‘Primary Education in Asia’, Malcolm S. Adiseshiah, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, The UNESCO Chronicle, vol. 6, No.4, 1960.

                               

FOOTNOTES:

(1) This institute, a forerunner of the UNESCO-Chairs Programme, was established in Bangkok in 1955 and became a national body ten years later.

(2) In the immediate aftermath of the war, in co-operation with the Supreme Allied Command, UNESCO undertook a number of activities in Japan relating to the theme of international understanding. These activities laid the foundations for the many co-operation programmes that were later developed with Japan, notably ACCU (Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO), and the educational research programme. From 1950 onwards, under its emergency assistance operations, UNESCO took part in the work of UNKRA, the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency, inter alia supplying a printing press capable of producing 20 million textbooks a year.

(3) School radio in Pakistan, repair of scientific instruments in the Islamic Republic of Iran, modernization of teacher training in Burma (now Union of Myanmar), foreign language teaching in Mongolia, etc.

(4) The Healthy Village : An Experience in Visual Education in West China. UNESCO, 1952.

(5) The creation of a fundamental education centre, similar to the Centro de Educación Fundamental para el Desarollo de la Comunidad en América Latina (CREFAL), or the Regional Centre for Functional Literacy in Rural Areas for the Arab States (ASFEC) was considered unfeasible in Asia.

(6) The Asia region had 18 Member States at that time: Afganistan, Australia, Burma (now the Union of Myanmar), China, Democratic Kampuchea (now Cambodia), India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Japan, Korea (Republic of), Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam (Socialist Republic of).

(7) The Needs of Asia in Primary Education, UNESCO, 1961 Educational Studies and Documents, No. 41.

(8) From 1962 to 1964, the Office carried out more than fifteen national sectoral studies with the help of experts from the region.

(9) As part of UNESCO’s contribution to the first United Nations Development Decade (1961-1970).