by Ms Suzy Halimi, Rapporteur-General,
at the closing ceremony of the World Conference on Higher Education
(Friday, 9 October 1998)

Distinguished Ministers,
Mr President of the General Conference,
Mr Chairperson of the Executive Board,
Mr Director-General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have the honour as Rapporteur-General to offer you a synoptic account of the statements and addresses we have heard, of the analyses and critical considerations that have been expressed in the commissions and during the thematic debates, of the expectations and demands that have been formulated, and, finally, of the commitments made regarding the new vision which we have together forged for higher education. Allow me, therefore, to convey my wholehearted gratitude for this token of your trust.

This Conference has been attended by some 4,000 delegates and observers: representatives of Member States, to be sure, but also of a whole range of international organizations, institutions and agencies, as well as by all those who, in civil society, are involved in higher education - universities, academics and students, regional authorities, the private sector, associations, businesses and the world of work. This major international gathering has been the culmination of an ambitious project, of a process which began hesitantly but has continued to harness energies throughout its momentum-gathering course. The stimulating working documents that have been prepared for us, the insights we have contributed during the deliberations, the draft Declaration and draft Framework for Action we have examined and refined during the past week, have enabled us to reach a critical consensus, which is the hallmark of UNESCO. The fact that the Conference has taken place on the very eve of the third millennium, with all the challenges, uncertainties and promises pertaining thereto, can only extend its impact and raise the expectations which have been placed in it.

I should like in particular to highlight the fact that our World Conference has successfully combined policy presentations, in-depth expert reports, democratic participation, and statements reflecting a range of cultural sensibilities around four major topics, namely, relevance, improvement of quality, the management and financing of higher education with a view to ensuring justice and equity, and, finally, international co-operation.

Four commissions have focused on these four critical areas, in order to take stock of the current situation and to assess the latest developments and achievements. Their deliberations have served to enhance approaches, compare viewpoints and consider together a number of priority areas for action. In addition, thematic debates, bringing together various panels, were devised, organized and directed by the main actors involved in higher education and research. Reflected therein was the desire to consolidate dialogue and to strengthen its validity. A number of powerful expectations were expressed, and precise demands were put forward. As a result, the Conference took on the form of an open learning forum, one that proposed, over and above the officially programmed activities, a profusion of initiatives reflecting the sheer multifariousness of higher education on the eve of the third millennium.

In a bid to reflect this profusion of ideas, including the ministers’ own statements, I shall first sketch in the context in which this wide-ranging process of mutual consultation took place, then highlight the salient points which emerged from our joint reflection, grouping them together around the four themes that served to structure the whole: relevance, quality, management and international co-operation.

The future of higher education cannot be usefully addressed without first taking stock of the national, regional and international context in which it is called upon to fulfil its missions, be they traditional or novel.

We must be fully alive to the fact that higher education can no longer be conceived solely in terms of national situations and criteria. Research and training that are worthy of the name cannot henceforth be conducted in purely local terms.

The general problems that have been itemized, mainly within the framework of the statements by ministers and heads of delegation, reveal that, beyond the various situations specific to a particular country or group of countries, there exists a growing trend for problems to become globalized, a trend characterized by the extreme complexity of the situations involved.

‘It may well be that globalization, despite the differences of opinion which surround it, is today an inescapable fact of life’, Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz suggested, at the opening meeting of our Conference. It might also, as Mr Portella, President of the General Conference of UNESCO, added, constitute an ethical challenge and a vast arena for international solidarity.

Globalization, it must be emphasized, means not only economic globalization; it is also the internationalization of human exchanges and the circulation of ideas. The present Conference is a living witness thereof, by virtue of the number and the calibre of its participants, as Mr Pál Pataki, Chairperson of the Executive Board, stressed.

Humankind is faced with a series of problems that cannot be solved within the framework of isolated policies. That is what prompted the French Prime Minister to refer to the ‘new and stimulating context’ in which higher education must today perform its many different functions, and ensure its own transformation.

It should also be recalled, as the Director-General of UNESCO reminded us, that higher education is faced with an upsurge of democratization and an extension of the rule of law in virtually all societies. The role of education in general, and of higher education in particular, in promoting and preserving democracy, and in educating the young and the less young for democratic citizenship, is now generally acknowledged.

This development is also marked by the prominence won by women in decision-making processes. The struggle being waged for recognition of complete equality is not without its difficulties and even sufferings, but it offers a major challenge for higher education in the twenty-first century. Many speakers raised this issue, notably in the group devoted to the matter, which drew attention to the need to empower women and to adopt measures that would enable them to combine access to positions of responsibility in professional careers with the demands of family life.

A further challenge lies in the latest achievements of science, the sine qua non of sustainable development, as was stressed in particular by the Islamic Republic of Iran and Switzerland - a situation which should not obscure the fact that the development of individual countries may also be a precondition for the development of science. The ethical issues raised by scientific research and its applications provide higher education with a vast field of study and futurology. These aspects aroused great interest among those taking part in the second thematic debate, who saw in them a means of responding to the complexity and changes typical of the end of the century.

The same is true - as noted by many speakers - of the place acquired by communication technologies in our societies, with the consequences that the invasion of virtual reality has inevitably had on the widening gaps between industrialized and post-industrial countries and developing countries. It would be wise, while taking the measure of the radical disruptions introduced by the new technologies into society and hence into education, to refrain from excessive optimism.

Optimism is equally out of place when it comes to the state of the planet that we shall be bequeathing to future generations. Higher education cannot withdraw into itself and turn a blind eye to the damage being done to the environment, damage that we deplore without managing fully to put right. Population growth and galloping urbanization are, of course, not unconnected with the serious problem of the ecological future of our planet. These matters were dwelt upon by several delegations, including that of Côte d’Ivoire.

The decline of agriculture and industry - varying from country to country - and the progression of the service sector, which were referred to in the debate on ‘The requirements of the world of work’, give rise to a further challenge relating to the evolution of the economy and the structure of the job market. More and more sectors of the population are having to contend with social exclusion, and young graduates are themselves not spared by unemployment. This is undoubtedly the most acute problem facing us today: indeed, the entire enterprise of democratization and the values of our societies are being undermined by it. We must, as the Director-General of UNESCO urges us, dare to share. Here again, higher education undoubtedly has a role to play in developing new capacities for adapting to economic trends, with a view to ensuring greater social cohesion and strengthening democratic citizenship. If there is to be sharing within countries, as between countries, a number of conditions must be met: there must be a determination to promote and respect basic human rights, the political will to commit resources to human development, a deep sense of solidarity, and the mobilization of all institutional and financial partners in both the public and private sectors.

For many developing countries, the brain drain is a daunting problem. While it is indeed essential to maintain mobility - which is a source of intellectual enrichment - measures must also be taken to encourage nationals to return to their country of origin and to take part in its economic, social and cultural development. The students gave extensive coverage to this dimension during their round table, as well as on the occasion of the thematic debate on their vision of the form that a new society should take.

Our societies are, alas, plagued by many conflicts, the most serious being regional and national wars. The acts of violence perpetrated in many countries are symptomatic of the difficulty experienced by citizens, including many youngsters, in finding their place in a new society in which most of the old standards have vanished and values are no longer perceptible. As the representatives of Costa Rica and India in particular pointed out, the University has a role to play in bringing about a culture of peace. Having faith in youth, and in particular in students, is a challenge that higher education must meet in all our countries.

Such, then, is the complex context in which we are called upon to work out a new vision for higher education. And a question immediately arises: can higher education take on new functions while remaining as it was before? This issue was raised by Brazil, and formed the focus of Thematic Debate No. 6. What challenges must it meet at the dawn of the third millennium?

How could we fail to seize the opportunity afforded by this great international gathering to pinpoint, in the observations formulated, in the initiatives taken here and there, in the successes as well as in the setbacks, the major issues facing the higher education of today and tomorrow? We here encounter once again the four main lines of inquiry that have been selected to structure this World Conference and the various events that preceded it.

We are first faced with the task of establishing a mass higher education system integrated into lifelong education. Several of those who took the floor, including the representative of Chile, noted and applauded the general interest shown today in higher education, not least by the major funding agencies - itself a sign of a change in attitude. Higher education is acknowledged to be a factor of development in a knowledge-based society and economy. Of course we still need to be in a position to provide as many young people as possible with relevant and high-quality training that gives them access to the job market and enables them subsequently to update their skills and knowledge.

We have just alluded to the need to open higher education to a broader student population. This assumes, as the representative of Indonesia and several other speakers pointed out, that real opportunities exist to respond to the growing demand for higher education in the different countries of the world. Admittedly, the mass provision of higher education is already a reality in a number of countries. Others have undertaken to move towards this objective, one that calls for co-operation and solidarity. We shall return to the matter in the final section of this report.

Everyone found that the experience of democratizing higher education runs up against the criterion of relevance. The discussions demonstrated that relevance is a dynamic concept, varying according to context and from one target group to another, with particular attention needing to be paid to minority groups. The issue of who decides what is relevant lay at the heart of the discussions in Commission II and was also debated in plenary. The representatives of Canada, Colombia, Egypt and the Islamic Republic of Iran drew particular attention to this dimension. It emerged, in our view, from the deliberations that relevance can only be the outcome of dialogue and consultation among the different partners concerned, including the students themselves.

The quality of higher education is judged mainly by the strength of the ethical and pedagogical principles it embodies. It is riven by a number of conflicts and paradoxes: the contradiction between the explosion and fragmentation of demand on the one hand and the unemployment which affects an ever growing number of graduates on the other; between the duty of equality and justice, and the financial constraints upon the mass extension of this form of education; and finally, the conflict between ethical and moral obligations and the various incitements to misuse knowledge and discoveries. Faced with such tensions and paradoxes, higher education must develop a new vision, take advantage of its adaptability, flexibility and imaginative resources in order to develop problem-solving and forward-looking capacities, equip itself with an ever watchful critical spirit and promote teamwork, without ever jettisoning its role as ethical watchdog.

The issue of quality cannot be dissociated from the quest for excellence and the need to establish evaluation criteria. Many countries are calling for international quality standards. Such criteria and standards should take account of the diversity of situations. The need to develop a culture of evaluation is inseparable from the concept of quality, itself intimately bound up with the successful democratization of the higher education system.

These particular problems were the responsibility of Commission III.

Education can no longer be - and in many cases no longer is - confined to an ivory tower. The sharing of responsibilities with all partners, both inside and outside the university, is essential.

Within the institution, responsibilities belong to all users, teachers, researchers, students and administrative staff and, more widely, to all who have management and advisory functions. New forms of management which strengthen collective responsibility and transparency must be introduced.

Outside the institution, the multiplicity of partners is now an established fact: business enterprises, regional authorities created by the decentralization process and scientific research establishments independent of the university. Higher education has developed its relations with the economic world; gone are the days when the two camps ignored or found fault with one another. But in this partnership, higher education must be careful not to adopt a mercantile attitude, as firmly pointed out by the Prime Minister of France: the market is of course an inescapable fact of life, but its demands must not be allowed to predominate. This problem seems particularly acute in the countries in transition.

The partnership with industry and other sectors of society can also help to vocationalize higher education. Internships in industry have become routine in many countries, while many business managers are currently involved in higher education. In addition, consultative arrangements under which companies take part in the management of universities can be put in place, research projects can bring universities and businesses closer together and assistance in job seeking can be jointly envisaged. All this calls for a different approach on the part of business enterprises, corresponding to the recognition by universities of the need for change.

In the context of this complex and demanding style of management, the autonomy of universities and the exercise of academic freedoms must be respected. At the national level, the growing number of very diverse institutions needed to meet the changing trends in demand cannot be properly managed without flexible mechanisms and some degree of decentralization.

The supervisory function must be exercised through a policy of encouragement and support rather than restraint. It is the only way of developing forms of higher education that are better adapted to demand: open universities, private service providers of various kinds, distance-education systems, virtual campuses, shared multi-site networks, etc.

Of course the thematic debates took up the question of the resources offered by the new information and communication technologies, including the possibility of setting up virtual universities such as the United Nations University. The debate on this question was highly instructive and produced a number of interesting proposals. A video conference demonstration illustrated the fundamental changes that are already taking place - and will continue to do so in the future - as a result of the transition from the traditional to the virtual. These changes affect the three main pillars of higher education, namely courses, laboratories and libraries. The speakers drew attention to the impact of these new technologies, without losing sight of the ethical, cultural and geopolitical dimensions involved in access to these tools, in the generation of knowledge and in its dissemination. The establishment of North/South and South/South co-operation was recommended so as to facilitate the access of all to these technologies, to strengthen endogenous capacities and to make universally available the knowledge thus produced.

Technologies cannot solve every problem. As the representative of Algeria stressed, special efforts must be made on behalf of women who, in many countries, are still excluded from higher education and left out of the decision-making processes of society. Technologies can help, but the genuine democratization of higher education also requires the removal of the socio-economic, cultural and political obstacles that hinder women’s full access to education and their full social integration.

The financing of higher education remains a major problem at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The flexibility sought after - and already largely obtained - by the universities is not a reason for failing to be accountable; a method should be found, according to some speakers, including the representative of Swaziland, that both respects university autonomy and provides accountability; performance-related financing is one of the many ways of achieving that end. Whatever the case, there must be no violation of academic freedoms or of the basic principles underlying them.

In view of the development of higher education, the state cannot hope to be the sole or even the main source of financing for the sector as a whole. This view was shared by several speakers, including the representative of Morocco. But it in no way detracts from the state’s responsibility for ensuring that higher education is adequately financed. The contractual system, as practised in France, which links higher education institutions and the ministry responsible for a four-year period, may enable the latter to determine the extent of its financial commitment but does not prevent the institution from seeking other partners. Numerous speakers, such as the representatives of Cape Verde and Mali, were concerned by the withdrawal of the state. Of course, it is obvious that the state alone cannot supply all the requisite financing, so it is advisable to create at the decision-making level an atmosphere conducive to greater diversification of funding sources for higher education. The solutions will be many and varied. In any event, an effort should be made to foster an entrepreneurial spirit in institutions which are striving to raise funds not only by traditional research and training activities but also by commercial or production operations. In yet other cases, we see the ever growing development of a private higher education sector. New ways of diversifying resources, resulting from a variety of pressures and opportunities, are continually emerging; UNESCO and other networks could play a useful role by disseminating them.

All these possibilities of diversification are fraught with dangers that must be avoided. The most serious of all is that of undermining equality of access to higher education. Private education, for instance, while leading to wider access than would otherwise be available, tends to be fee-paying and therefore enrols fewer underprivileged students. Involvement by the state and the retention of a public service are still the best guarantee of equal opportunities and the democratization of higher education.

At this stage in the analysis of the major changes in higher education we feel it is necessary - and the texts we are to adopt so invite us - to accord greater importance to international experience, partnership and solidarity, which several delegations, including that of South Africa, supported.

The working documents setting out the experiences of institutions, countries and regions all stress the contribution of co-operation to greater solidarity and genuine peace. This co-operation is necessary not only to reinforce the quality, relevance and internal effectiveness of higher education, but also to build bridges between local and national partners and between nations.

The participants in Commission IV welcomed the ideas in the working document submitted to them and, at the initiative of the International Association of Universities, strongly urged that higher education should include among its primary missions international co-operation and the need to promote plurality of cultures, global awareness of problems and sustainable development throughout the world.

At the international level, the networking of higher education and research institutions under programmes such as the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme was highlighted as an innovative approach to national and institutional capacity-building in the developing countries.

The open-doors approach to learning and training which encourages academic mobility appeared to many developing countries, and to some non-governmental organizations and foundations, to be the sole preserve of the industrialized world. The developing countries are suffering from the brain drain, which is a sort of exile of ‘intelligence’, and from its adverse effects on their ability to strengthen their institutions and shape critical and creative citizens. Without automatically linking those trends, the Conference endorsed this concern and launched an appeal for the promotion of mobility, while assisting countries deprived of their experts to retain and motivate their specialists at home, or encourage them to return, by setting up North/South co-operative links between institutions, and by creating centres of excellence in the developing countries. TOKTEN and TALVEN, which were presented during the proceedings, are interesting examples in this context.

Several speakers backed the idea of launching an ‘Academics without Frontiers’ initiative, referred to in one of the working documents, and hoped that this possibility would be explored.

In connection with work that could be carried out jointly on quality, it should be recalled that many countries were in favour of drawing up international standards for the evaluation of quality, but with all due respect for the diversity and specificity of individual countries. More generally, noting that six intergovernmental committees are resolutely addressing the question of the recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees in higher education, speakers felt that similar bodies should be set up to look into the evaluation of international co-operation. As pointed out by the representative of Morocco, it is crucial for UNESCO to commission an evaluation report on the forms and practices of such co-operation in relation to the specific needs of each region.

Emphasis should also be given to the task of providing expert advice and assistance in institutional capacity-building that falls to UNESCO in higher education, as in its other fields of competence. In addition, the participants requested UNESCO to continue its work on academic freedom, with particular attention to the follow-up to the Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel adopted by the Organization at its General Conference in 1997. They also raised the question of a permanent study group to draw up a Universal Charter of Academic Freedoms.

We have reached the end of the proceedings of the World Conference on Higher Education.

The texts we have just adopted are, for our governments, our higher education institutions, the non-governmental organizations, and all the partners here present, lines of action that we undertake to pursue in each of our countries and in the context of international co-operation.

However, this whole exercise, which has involved manifold consultations and has culminated in this international gathering, will have been in vain if it were to cease this evening.

Our first task will be to explain, and if necessary defend, and then to convince. In order to do so, the Declaration and Framework for Action must be widely distributed to those in charge of higher education, to academics, to all the specialists concerned, and to the many relevant institutions of civil society. In our home countries we will probably have to organize debates and set up working groups to look more deeply into particular aspects of the Declaration and Framework for Action, and to consider how the reforms can be put into practice.

Our texts do not stop there. They call for greater regional and international co-operation and active solidarity with countries that are lagging behind in development. We must make sure that in a few years’ time we are not driven to the bitter conclusion that the divisions and gaps have widened even further, that still more skilled personnel from the countries of the South have headed into exile, thus diverting an essential and stimulating mobility from its true purpose, and that higher education in many countries is still unable to make an effective contribution to the development of the education system as a whole and to the quality of basic education.

That is why we must shape a new generation of models of co-operation, based on local needs, taking account of economic and social realities and cultural specificities, and providing advisory services and expertise without imposing conditions and without imposing themselves. Co-operating means working together to carry out co-ordinated action. That is what we are called upon to do.

As the work of this World Conference draws to a close, it is extremely important that the curtain should not fall, without lasting impact, on this vision of higher education in the twenty-first century. The concluding Declaration and Framework for Priority Action that we have adopted are there to call to action all those who have worked so intensely and constructively during this week of October 1998. It is up to them, in their own fields and with their own responsibilities, to make sure that these texts are followed up, so that together we can meet the challenges of the next millennium.

On concluding this report, I should like to thank the drafting group, the members of the UNESCO Secretariat and all those who have worked with me throughout the week. For their commitment, support and the pertinence of their contributions, and for the confidence you have placed in me by entrusting me with the uplifting task of Rapporteur-General of the Conference, may I offer you all my most sincere gratitude.