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50 Years for Education |
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The vision of UNESCO’s founders remains as valid
today as it was half a century ago. Yet the world in which that vision
must be realized is fundamentally different. Today, more than nine out of ten outbreaks of
war and violence occur within states rather than between them and more
than nine out of ten casualties are civilians rather than soldiers.
A failure of development policies and the suffering and frustration that ensues
therefrom are often at the heart of internal conflicts and the growing
recourse to violence.
The real and urgent threats to peace and international security are exclusion, poverty and underdevelopment and all the woes that accompany them. Yet, yesterday as today, education is among the best responses - sometimes the only response - that society has to offer: education for all, education for development, education for justice and liberty and peace. Thus, the account that follows of UNESCO’s activities in education is a record of continuity as well as change: of the rapid emergence of new situations and unexpected circumstances, but also of an enduring faith in education as the best means and preparation for meeting the unknown challenges of the future. Education remains today, as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow, the pre-eminent means for forging the tools of reason and the instruments of development. While the world has been fundamentally transformed, UNESCO’s constitutional mission of constructing the defences of peace in the minds of men remains as vital and challenging today, on the eve of a new millennium, as it was at the Organization’s birth.
This volume - with the accompanying CD-ROMs -
is a testimony and a record of
the great efforts and the major achievements that can serve as an inspiring
prologue to the vast and demanding work that awaits UNESCO in the twenty-first century.
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