UNESCO IN THE WORLD — UNESCO IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

1957 Establishment of a Co-ordination Unit for the Major Project at the Havana Office 1958 Inter-American training seminar on educational planning, UNESCO/OAS, Washington 1962 The Conference of Ministers of Education and those Responsible for Economic Planning, UNESCO/ OAS/CEPAL (MINEDLAC II), Santiago 1963 Creation of OREALC, UNESCO Regional Office for Education, Santiago Creation of CONESCAL, School Building Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico City 1966 Conference of Ministers of Education and those Responsible for Economic Planning in the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (MINEDLAC III), UNESCO/CEPAL, Buenos Aires

THE FIRST ‘MAJOR PROJECT’ The regional conference on education organized by UNESCO on the extension of primary education (Lima, 1956), which was followed by a regional seminar on the primary curriculum, coincided with the Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education and the Second meeting of the Inter-American Committee for Culture organized by OAS. Out of these four meetings, attended by numerous specialists from the region and other parts of the world, came orientations critical to the development of education in Latin America: the role of international co-operation in financing education, links to be established between educational planning and economic and social devel-opment, the modernization of curricula and introducing professionalism into teacher-training. Finally, it was also in Lima that the Major Project on the Extension and Improvement of Primary Education in Latin America was conceived - ‘extension’ because only one child out of two had been to school, and ‘improvement’ because in rural areas teachers were underqualified, schools were incomplete and schooling lasted only three years, compared with six years in towns. This first Major Project whose objective was to encourage Member States in the region to provide, within a reasonable lapse of time, free and compulsory primary education for all children, was implemented between 1957 and 1965. Its activities were mainly addressed to the development of educational planning, renovation of curricula, and training teachers and other educational personnel. The project was implemented through training courses and seminars, (4) partnership agreements with teacher- training colleges and ‘associated’ universities, (5) and a programme of international travel grants and study tours for experts. UNESCO co-operated actively with the Latin American Educational Film Institute (ILCE) (6) in Mexico to produce audiovisual materials. A Regional School Building Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean, CONESCAL, was opened in Mexico in 1963 and planning seminars organized in Santiago in co-operation with CEPAL (later CEPALC). Responsibility for supporting the coordination of the project was transferred from the Havana Office to the Regional Office for Education, OREALC, opened in 1963 in Santiago. This first Major Project gave rise to enormous efforts at enhancing international solidarity; sister agencies, especially ILO and UNICEF, (7) participated, as did regional organizations, such as OAS and the Ibero-American Bureau of Education and Latin American and European Member States. René Maheu, then Director-General of UNESCO, presented the results of the Major Project to the Conference of Ministers of Education held in Buenos Aires (MINEDLAC III, 1966). He stressed the increase in the percentage of public spending devoted to education, matched with an increase in enrolment figures between 1957 and 1965 at a rate twice that of demographic growth rates, and the decrease by nearly twenty points, despite the considerable increases in the number of school teachers, of the percentage of teachers without qualifications. Even though school enrolment at the secondary and higher levels doubled during this period, the deficit remained great, especially when compared with the industrialized countries.

BETWEEN THE TWO MAJOR PROJECTS, 1966-1981 Despite economic and political instability, the years between 1966 and 1981 were nonetheless a period of intense educational activity, sustained both by UNESCO and OAS. The latter had launched a ten-year Programme of Regional Educational Development (PREDE) (8) which promoted multinational projects, fixing goals which were common for the activities of each national centre but adapted to each country's needs. (9) UNESCO continued its previous activities to enhance teacher-training and educational planning which had been the subject of several regional programmes, including the Regional Network of Education for Development in Central America and Panama (RED) financed by extra-budgetary resources, and action to promote functional literacy within the framework of the Experimental World Literacy Project, with projects in Ecuador and Venezuela. New fields of activities were opened up: educational innovation for development with the 1979 launching of the Caribbean Network of Educational Innovation for Development (CARNEID), the promotion of educational industries in co-operation with the Permanent Secretariat of the ‘Andrés Bello’ Convention (SECAB), the use of radio with the Asociación Latinoamericana de Educación Radiofónica (ALER) and that of television with the study of a project for regional educational satellites, SERLA. (10) In 1974, a regional population education programme was begun in co-operation with UNFPA, as were pilot projects on environmental education with UNEP. During this period, higher education and the training of highly qualified personnel needed for the development of the industrial sector constituted an important field of action, albeit somewhat jeopardized by the brain drain. The first of six regional conventions on the recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees in Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, which aimed at ensuring the mobility of qualified teachers within the region, was signed in 1974 in Mexico City, and a Regional Centre for Higher Education in Latin American and the Caribbean, CRESALC, was established in Caracas in 1978.

The Lima Conference, 1956 Recommendation II Improvement in living standards and community development in Latin America require the simultaneous action of full primary education for the entire school age population and of fundamental education for all adults.[...] Recommends [...] that teachers be familiar with the principles and techniques of community organization and leadership and also be reasonably informed on health and on the typical economic activities of the community in which they work. Final Report, MINEDLAC I, Lima, 1956 Arturo U. Illia President of the Republic of Argentina from 1963 to 1966 It is above all in the way we educate our young people that we can integrate our nations into a union which is truly a union of the whole continent; unless we first form the essential community of a culturally united America, we shall never fully realize the integrating ideal of the liberators. MINEDLAC III, Buenos Aires, 1966 René Maheu (France) Director-General of UNESCO from 1962 to 1974 We cannot be satisfied with partial innovations, such as those that would consist in applying a veneer of modern educational techniques over existing structures. The objective must be the total reform of education. Opening Speech to MINEDLAC IV, Venezuela, 1971

                               

FOOTNOTES:

(4) Chiefly seminars on planning organized with OAS, on school statistics, with Spain, or on teacher-training.

(5) Within the framework of these associations, UNESCO provided expert assistance in the form of yearly training courses for education specialists at the Associated Universities of São Paulo (Brazil), Santiago (Chile) and La Plata (Argentina), to the Inter-American Centre for Rural Education in Rubio (Venzuela), to associated teacher-training colleges in Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Nicaragua for training school principals and inspectors.

(6) Direct co-operation (provision of an expert) with ILCE in Mexico, which later became the Latin American Institute for Educational Communication, continued until 1975.

(7) UNESCO co-operated with ILO in the implementation of its action programme for the Andean Indians. Co-operation with UNICEF related to teacher training in the associated teacher-training colleges, as well as in El Salvador and in Guatemala.

(8) After the Summit of the Heads of State in Punta del Este (Uruguay) in 1967, OAS developed its educational action by establishing the Inter-American Council for Education, Science and Culture endowed with a special fund, thus initiating a technical co-operation mechanism which was self-financing at the regional level.

(9) These projects concerned among others research and innovation, technical education, adult education, educational technology, etc.

(10) Study justified by the frequent choice of radio or television for education in the region. Radio: Accion Cultural Popular in Colombia, Radio Santa Maria in the Dominican Republic, Radio primaria in Mexico; television: El Salvador, Maranhão and Ceara (Brazil) for secondary education, Costa Rica, Venezuela, etc., open and distance universities.