UNESCO IN THE WORLD — UNESCO IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
 1962First Regional Conference of Ministers of Education (MINEDAP I), (Tokyo), followed by conferences in Bangkok (1965), Singapore (1971), Colombo (1978), Bangkok (1985), and Kuala Lumpur (1993)
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SINCE 1972: CONSOLIDATION
AND EXPANSION
The Third Regional Conference of Ministers of Education and those
Responsible for Economic Planning in Asia (Singapore, 1971), focused on
regional co operation on the theme of educational innovation for development
and recommended that the various regional institutions established ten
years previously should be incorporated in a network based at the Bangkok
Regional Office. The APEID educational innovation for development network
formed the basis for a strategy of decentralization ‘down the line’, with
activities under each programming cycle drawn up by the participants
themselves during regional meetings. These activities would then be channelled
through national structures, associated centres and national development
groups. The selected areas of activity related to development were often the
subject of an intersectoral approach. (10) A
unit of the Regional Office acted
as the executing agency and was responsible for co-ordinating programmes with
the funding sources. (11) Twenty years later, the thirty-seven associated
centres in eight Member States had developed into a network encompassing 200
centres in twenty-nine states. The result was an original form of
co-operation among Asian Member States - South-South co-operation based
on solidarity, reciprocity and participation.
A separate co-operation network was set up for higher education.
After ten years, the regional co-operation network for higher education
for development, established in 1982, had a membership of over 110 higher
education institutions. One of its first
achievements was the 1983 Regional Convention on the Recognition of Studies,
Diplomas and Degrees. (12) The purpose of the network is to promote distance
education, resource management and greater participation by women, and to
place higher education at the service of development.
The persistence of illiteracy in the region (13) prompted the creation
of a new programme of education for all, APPEAL, which is primarily
concerned with the very large numbers of illiterate adults, and with
children and adolescents excluded from formal
education. (14)
The World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien in Thailand
in 1990, gave a new lease of life to the development of education in Asia.
Provision has been made for the establishment of a regional consultation
mechanism on education in the Asia and the Pacific region.
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by level of education |
LITERACY IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC |
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East Asia / South Asia
1960 2.6 3.6
1965 2.7 3.6
1970 2.7 3.8
1975 2.8 3.9
1980 3.2 4.1
1985 3.0 3.3
1990 3.0 3.9
1993 3.0 3.7
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Two programmes in the field of education - APEID and APPEAL - serve as
signposts of PROAP. APEID was recommended by MINEDAPIII (Singapore 1971).It
became operational in 1973 after obtaining the authorization of the
seventeenth General Conference of UNESCO in 1972.APPEAL was similarly
recommended by MINEDAP V (Bangkok 1985).It was formally launched on 23
February 1987 by the Director-General of UNESCO in New Delhi.
APEID and APPEAL are complementary.Recognizing that while the illiteracy
rate went down from 46.4 per cent in 1970 to 36.3 per cent in 1985, the
absolute number of illiterates is constantly rising, Member States felt
the need to redouble efforts to eradicate illiteracy from the region.
APPEAL was designed to canvass the vast constituency of illiterates that
stood at 66 million in the Asia-Pacific region in 1987 when it was launched.
Raja Roy-Singh, Founder of the Bangkok Office. |
Prize of the President of the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO and the Nikon prize.
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René Maheu (France) Director-General of UNESCO from 1962 to 1974 If we think back to the Tokyo meeting, and still more to the Karachi meeting three years earlier, there can be no doubt at all that in six years we have acquired a far better knowledge of the problems involved and the methods whereby they may be solved. Closing Speech to the MINEDAP II Conference, Bangkok, 1965
Mom Luang Pin Malakul Closing Speech to MINEDAP II, Bangkok, 1965, presided by Mr Pin Malakul
Indira Gandhi Message addressed to UNESCO on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary, 1966
Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow Speech to MINEDAP IV, Colombo, 1978
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FOOTNOTES:
(10) These activities included: rural development, health and nutrition, education and work, non-formal and alternative education structures, educational technology, joint research projects, experimental educational development projects, etc.
(11) Chiefly, UNDP, AsDB, bilateral assistance (Australia, China, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Thailand, for a total amount of $2 billion between 1974 and 1987).
(12) Regional Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees in Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific, ratified by fifteen Member States by late 1995.
(13) More than two-thirds of the world’s 950 million illiterates live in Asia.
(14) National co-ordination committees have been set up in twenty-three Member States.
'The title of APEID itself is indicative of its approach, it is not a search
for educational innovationper se, but for educational innovations linked to
national development efforts'.
