In order to prepare the ground for the World Conference on Higher Education ("Higher Education in the XXIst century"), regional conferences have to fulfill the double function of promoting the overall mobilisation process and, at the same time, of arriving at recommendations for action to feed into the WCHE.

Bearing in mind the complexity of the issues and the multitude of target groups involved, the Europe Regional Conference will contain two main stages: Palermo, September 1997 and Bucharest, April 1998.

The Conference is being organised jointly by UNESCO's European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES) and the Association of European Universities (CRE) at the University of Palermo.

A number of other events being organised over the coming year in the Europe region will also contribute to the mobilisation process.



Conference themes and objectives

Set in the larger context of a changing Europe, the Palermo Conference seeks to mobilise the higher education community in Europe and to stimulate debate between university leaders and a wide range of interested partners with a view to developing an agenda for the XXIst century.

Within the framework of the three major themes for the World Conference on Higher Education - Pertinence, Quality, International co-operation - the intention is to develop an action plan for the future looking closely at the four main functions of the university defined as:

1. Teaching and Learning- to provide young adults with the aptitudes, knowledge and skills they require to construct their own future;

2. Preparation for the world of work - to provide training taking into consideration the demands and changes of the labour market, thus enabling even larger numbers of young people to build upon and further develop their own capacities;

3. Nurturing the knowledge base- to develop young people's capacities for innovative thinking as a precondition for high quality research;

4. Transmitting Europe's cultural values- to promote both the concepts of identity and multiculturalism in educating the future citizens of Europe.

Discussion will be based on case studies of higher education provision in some 20 different regions of Europe which will be prepared by the universities themselves.

Participants
Some 400 persons are expected to attend the meeting made up of representatives from higher education institutions (university and non-university sector, teacher and student representatives) and from other major stake holders (industry and productive sector, professional associations, parliamentarians, central and local government, UNESCO National Commissions, etc.).