EFA News - 3 September 2001
  • Beijing Declaration proposes new strategies for EFA
  • The Involvement of Civil Society in Education for All

    • Beijing Declaration proposes new strategies for EFA

    Education Ministers of nine high population countries (E9) - Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan - reaffirmed their commitment to "intensify our efforts and strengthen our policies" for achieving education for all at the conclusion of a two-day Ministerial Review Meeting in Beijing on August 23.

    In a Declaration issued today, Ministers and their representatives recognized that the progress that had taken place in all the nine countries was encouraging, and that education was now a strategic priority on national agendas. Early childhood education was being incorporated into education plans, gender disparities were being narrowed and the quality of primary education was being raised.

    The Declaration takes stock of several challenges that the countries face and spells out strategies to deal with them. These include, among others, forming and executing national action plans, increasing financial outlays for education, and providing safe and caring school environments that allow students to become healthy and alert. Information and communication technologies are seen as a means and not an end in themselves. However, their application in all fields of basic education - particularly to reach excluded sections of the population - is to be emphasized. The Declaration also calls for the infusion of human, environmental and ethical values in the interest of the all-round development of the individual; and for the creation of a network on the use of ICTs so that information and experiences can be exchanged.

    Support from international development partners was of utmost importance and hence international financial institutions were "urged to help fill the resources gap through debt relief and debt cancellation." Moreover, "developed countries were urged to consider it their moral obligation and duty to play an active role in bridging the digital divide."

    Above all, the Declaration speaks of the role of education not just to reduce poverty and promote social and economic growth, but also to instill non-violence, tolerance, social justice and cohesion and respect cultural diversity.

    The E9 Ministerial Meeting was the fourth of its kind since the establishment of this forum in New Delhi in 1993. The next meeting will be held in Egypt in 2003. The Ministerial meeting was preceded by a one day experts meeting on the use of distance education and new information and communication technologies for EFA, something which had been foreseen in Delhi in 1993.

    Speaking to the press later in the day, UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura declared that he was impressed by the political determination evident among all the Ministers in Beijing. Countries were aware, he said, of the need to take a holistic approach to education, and this included early childhood, an area which had been "neglected" earlier.

    Assistant Director General Mr John Daniel complimented delegates for their "ambitious goals" set, nevertheless in a "realistic context." In particular, he referred to what the Chinese Education Minsiter Ms Chen Zhili had said: "convert population pressure into a large human resource." Taking up the question of digital divide which was consistently brought up at the meeting, Mr. Daniel said that if its role in education and training is evaluated, "it will be seen that the divide is smaller than one thinks."

    All countries agreed during discussions that quality was one aspect of EFA that left room for improvement, whatever their optimism about meeting EFA goals. The Indian Minister of Human Resource Development Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi asserted that education should aim at creating a "non-exploitative, non-violent world order." There was growing concern over student violence everywhere, and if this was not tackled "we will head towards a violent society. Hence the need to teach tolerance, compassion and mutual understanding. "A child," Dr. Joshi said, "should indeed be a global citizen."

    Egypt's Minister of Education Dr. Hussein Kamel Bahaa El Din recalled the importance of safeguarding the specificities of cultures. ICTs, he said, should be a challenge to cultural hegemony. Mme Sonia Mendieta de Badaroux, President of UNESCO's Executive Board warned that IT was a promising instrument but not a panacea for widening access to education.

    Special Meeting
    The Involvement of Civil Society in Education for All
    IBE, Geneva, 8 September

    Convenor and Chair: Koïchiro Matsuura
    Director-General of UNESCO

    The theme for the Special Meeting, The Involvement of Civil Society in Education for All, reflects the overriding importance which the Director-General of UNESCO attaches to the role of non-governmental and other civil society organizations in the Education for All processes and movement. Education for All will not be successful unless all EFA partners and actors are mobilized and empowered to play their role in a movement that rests on a solid democratic foundation.

    The 46th Session of the International Conference on Education (ICE) on the theme Education for All for Learning to Live Together: Contents and Learning Strategies, Problems and Solutions, explores this fundamental notion through its two core axes related to education, democracy and social cohesion (citizenship and identity/diversity) and to education, the distribution of knowledge and the future of schools (languages, scientific knowledge/ethics and the digital divide), respectively. The debate on mobilizing the actors and partnerships constitutes the bridge to the Special Meeting which will discuss three country cases of government-civil society co-operation which can be claimed to provide good practices that have not been otherwise highlighted in the ICE Conference.

    The Special Meeting focuses on the involvement of civil society in policy formation processes understood more broadly than the development of specific (EFA) plans. This is discussed through country experiences from sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana), South Asia (Nepal) and a least developed country (Yemen).

    Each country delegation, which consists of a high-level government representative and a high-level NGO representative, will address the same question: Based on the experiences in your country, what are the preconditions for the successful inclusion of civil society in policy formulation, planning and action related to Education for All? The three keynote addresses will be followed by a response by Fred van Leeuwen, General Secretary of Education International, the world's largest federation of educators. The meeting is chaired, opened and closed by the Director-General of UNESCO.

    PROGRAMME

    9 - 9.30 am
    Welcome and introduction
    Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General UNESCO

    9.30 - 9.45 am
    Keynote address 1: Ghana (Prof. C. Ameyaw-Akumfi, Hon. Minister of Education
    and Ms Georgina Quaisie, Action Aid (Ghana)

    9.45 -10 am
    Keynote address 2: Nepal (Mr L. P. Debcote, Secretary, Ministry of Education
    and Dr Bal Gopal Baidya, South Asia Partnership, Nepal)

    10 - 10.15 am
    Keynote address 3: Yemen (Dr Abou Ghanim Fadhel, Hon. Minister of Education
    and Dr Abdullah Mubarek Al Ghaithi, Teachers' Union)

    10.15 - 10.30 am
    Response
    Mr Fred van Leeuwen, General Secretary, Education International

    10.30am - 12.15 pm
    Debate

    12.15 - 12.30 pm
    Closing remarks
    Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General UNESCO