Sharing Knowledge
U.N.E.S.C.O.
Worldwide Action in Education
SHARING KNOWLEDGE

  • International Intellectual Co-operation

  • World Education Report
  • World's Ministers of Education meet regularly in Geneva since 1932

  • Standard-Setting Activities
  • The ILO/UNESCO 1966 Recommendation

    • International Intellectual Co-operation

    International intellectual co-operation, one of UNESCO's most important purposes, is both a means of promoting closer links and mutual understanding between peoples and individuals, and an important instrument for action. UNESCO provides a framework for Member States to co-operate.
    This enables the best use to be made of available human and financial resources in solving the many problems common to the different Member States. In education, intellectual co-operation takes place at different levels and assumes many different forms, leading to:

  • major high-level deliberations, such as those of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century;

  • conferences and meetings such as the World Conference held in Jomtien (Thailand) on Education for All, the Regional Conferences of Ministers of Education and those Responsible for Economic Planning, and numerous other expert meetings;

  • normative action which makes it possible to prepare recommendations and international conventions on the basis of UNESCO's experience;

  • regional co-operation such as the regional programmes for literacy;

  • networking such as the networks of educational innovation for development, the International Network for Information in Science and Technology Education or the UNITWIN/UNESCO-Chairs programme for higher education;

  • surveys, research and studies on education, often carried out in co-operation with the relevant non-governmental organizations;

  • the collection, processing and exchange of information relating to education;

  • the exchange of persons - teachers and students - particularly through the granting of fellowships and the creation of UNESCO-Chairs.

    • World Education Report

    UNESCO's biennial World Education Report, first published in 1991, aims to present a broad but concise analysis of major trends and policy issues in education in the world today, based on the uniquely rich body of information and experience accumulated by the Organization, studies relating to education carried out by other international organizations, and selected findings from the vast range of professional research and analysis undertaken by non- governmental organizations and individual scholars. The Appendices of the Report feature the 'World Education Indicators': a unique set of statistics giving a country-by-country summary of key aspects of education in over 160 countries. The topics treated by the Report to date have included:

  • the worldwide expansion of enrolments in formal education over the last two decades, focusing especially on basic education and on the main challenges for educational policy in that area;

  • the global prospects of continuing progress towards the goal of 'education for all', underlining in particular the need for teachers;

  • the North-South 'knowledge gap', highlighting the changing pattern of disparities in literacy, schooling, and higher education and research between North and South;

  • the expansion of 'educational choice', focusing in particular on worldwide trends towards more freedom of choice in education for parents, pupils, teachers; and

  • the search for 'standards' in education, focusing on the current concern in many countries over pupils' learning achievement, teaching methods and curriculum relevance.

    The Report includes tables and graphs presented 'at a glance' in attractive form, with all graphs in colour. Key points in the text are illustrated with extracts from basic documents ranging from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to reports on individual country experiences.

    • World's Ministers of Education meet regularly
    in Geneva since 1932

    The International Conference on Education (ICE) offers the only opportunity for the world's Ministers of Education to hold regular meetings to discuss the policies and issues concerning them.

    A conference bringing together six Ministers of Education was organized by the International Bureau of Education (IBE) for the first time in Geneva in 1932. The following year, twenty-four countries attended. It was decided to hold these meetings regularly, and the 1934 session began the practice of adopting educational recommendations.

    Apart from a break during the Second World War, the Conference has continued on a regular basis to this day. From 1947 onwards, the meetings were organized jointly by the IBE and UNESCO, and since 1969 the International Conference on Education is convened every two years.

    In an endeavour to contribute to the drafting of national laws on good educational practice, the Conference has adopted seventy-eight recommendations over the past fifty-nine years on basic educational practices, but also on subjects as diverse as school canteens and AIDS education.

    The forty-third session (1992) dealt with the contribution of education to cultural development. The forty-fourth session (1994) will be devoted to education for international understanding and will bring together decision-makers, researchers, educationists and other partners in the educational process, including the mass media. It is intended to give impetus through education to measures bringing people closer together and thereby curtail manifestations of violence and intolerance towards others, xenophobia and, ultimately, armed conflict.

    Standard-Setting Activities

    At the request of the Member States, UNESCO prepares instruments in the form of conventions and recommendations - the former more binding than the latter, which are only advisory in nature - setting out the standards and general principles which they intend to observe and to see applied. To that end, the Organization is responsible for setting up consultation and inquiry procedures leading to the submission to the General Conference of reports on the application of these instruments.

    In 1993, two such reports are being submitted. The first relates to the implementation of the Revised Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education. This recommendation, adopted in 1974 (and followed in 1989 by a convention), contains guiding principles and legal provisions which are designed to promote the reorganization of this type of education and its adaptation to its new roles in society, in a context of lifelong education.

    The second report concerns the implementation of the Recommendation on the Development of Adult Education, adopted by the General Conference in 1976, which also refers to lifelong education and the need for a more rational and equitable distribution of educational resources among children and adults and among different social groups.

    The General Conference will also be called upon to decide on the desirability of adopting an international normative instrument concerning the status of higher education teaching personnel.

    The ILO/UNESCO 1966 Recommendation

    The ILO/UNESCO 1966 Recommendation on the Status of Teachers is still one of the most important tools for bringing about improvements in the teaching profession. This important normative instrument is implemented in close co-operation with ILO and in collaboration with the Non-Governmental Organizations for the Teaching Profession.

    Contemporary trends in education regarding the environment, population, health and nutrition, together with the concept of lifelong education, advances in information and communication technologies and distance education in teacher training, have implications for and an impact on the professional quality of teachers. In this regard, the number and role of women teachers have to be taken into consideration particularly in respect of their careers and other issues, such as the access of girls to education in many developing countries. Several regional/subregional seminars are organized to reinforce the application of the Recommendation.

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