UNESCO specialized institutes’ mission goes beyond the Europe Region. However, the institutes are active in the region linking and bringing the European experience to the other regions.

Since 1998, IBE has been undergoing a transformation in order to become UNESCO’s centre for the content of education, in conformity with its Framework Programme ‘The Adaptation of Content to the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century’ approved by UNESCO’s and IBE’s governing bodies. The main efforts have been channelled towards setting up regional/sub-regional networks on the management of curriculum change. The related activities started in 1998 in the Mediterranean region with a training course on educational policies and curriculum design at primary/secondary education levels. The course was attended by eleven countries including seven European countries. Following the training course, the draft Mediterranean programme (IBE/MED) was prepared and launched at a meeting organized in Malta in November 1999. Twenty countries were represented, among them: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. The activities of the network are concentrated around nine themes including inter alia comparison of basic learning among the Mediterranean countries, adaptation of content to regional and local contexts, the relation between curriculum and textbooks and the design of evaluation systems. They are implemented through a regional platform of information, Internet forums, policy dialogue meetings and workshops, and the preparation of case-studies, guidelines and training materials.

IBE’s Framework Programme lays emphasis on the activities of Learning to Live Together in a Democratic Society: The Challenges for the Adaptation of Educational Content. Through a joint project between IBE and the University of Geneva, an international seminar on ‘Learning to Live Together through the Teaching of History and Geography’ was organized in 1998. The experience of six European countries was presented at this event and in the subsequent publications. Also, in co-operation with the University of Geneva, an experimental Internet Forum was carried out in 1999 among teachers from France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. Twelve topics – identity, places of national significance, frontiers, peace, globalization, sustainable development democracy, foreigners, other cultures, stereotypes, humanism, nationhood – were discussed.

The forty-sixth session of the International Conference on Education (ICE), on the theme of ‘Educational Content and Learning Strategies for Living Together in the Twenty-first Century: Problems and Solutions’ (September 2001), will be a manifestation of IBE’s new mission. It will concentrate on ‘Living Together in a Democratic Society: The Mission of the Education System’ and on ‘The Evolution and Adaptation of Contents, Methods and Learning Strategies in the Context of a Globalized World’. Co-operation with many European agencies, including the Council of Europe, will be requested, particularly for the workshop on citizenship education.

Within its function as observatory of educational structures, contents and methods, IBE carries out the World Data on Education (WDE) project. During the period under review, the educational profiles of nearly all European countries have been prepared or updated in co-operation with the national educational authorities. The third edition of the CD-ROM, containing a description of educational profiles of 144 countries, was sent in 1999 to the ministries of education, national commissions for UNESCO and many educational institutions in all countries of the region. The constantly updated version of this databank is available on IBE’s Web site (http://www.ibe.unesco.org). The guide for foreign students, Study Abroad, contains, in its thirty-first edition (1999), 1,212 descriptions of fellowships and training programmes available for foreign students in European countries. The IBE databank INNODATA presents a description of 175 innovatory experiences in education in twenty-eight European countries.

The experience of European experts, scholars and researchers is largely used in carrying out IBE’s activities in other regions of the world, for example, in setting up the networks for the management of curriculum change, with IBE/MED serving as a model. Forty-seven European authors contributed an article to the quarterly review of education Prospects. A number of other publications were prepared by European authors and/or devoted to the experience of European countries. Among them: Rapid Educational Response in Complex Emergencies (prepared in collaboration with UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg, including the situation in the Balkan countries); monographs: The Secondary Education Certificate and Matriculation Examination in Malta; The Science of Thinking, and Science for Thinking; Systems of Knowledge: A Case Study of Curriculum Innovation. The second edition of The Intercultural Basis for International Education, including Anti-racist and Human Rights Education was produced in co-operation with the Council of Europe and the International Association for Intercultural Education. The Comenius Medal established jointly by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic and UNESCO to reward outstanding achievements and innovations carried out in the fields of teaching and educational research, was awarded in 1998 to six European scholars and researchers.

IBE co-operates with the International Organization for the Development of Freedom of Education (OIDEL) in organizing the annual summer university on human rights and the right to education. It has recently established co-operation agreements with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education and with the ‘Association mondiale pour l’école instrument de paix’. The programme of joint activities has recently been launched with UNAIDS. IBE is in regular contact with the EURYDICE European Unit. It participates in the European Education Research Association’s Network 12 (Information centres and libraries in educational research). IBE’s website maintains links to the sites of ministries of education, other government bodies, educational institutions, international organizations, education databanks/bases and other education resources throughout Europe.

• International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) - Paris

IIEP’s mission is to contribute to the strengthening of national capacities in educational planning and administration through training, research and publication activities. Special emphasis has been placed on the development of networks and the use of the new information and communication technologies to increase the multiplier effect of these activities. In co-operation with national commissions and ministries of education, intensive courses, workshops and specialized seminars were organized at regional and subregional level in order to reinforce national capacities for the planning, management, evaluation, reform and reconstruction of education systems.

At the request of the Government of Albania, a seminar on the decentralization of education took place at IIEP at the beginning of September 1999. Four senior staff from the Albanian Ministry of National Education participated. In the context of its Annual Training Programme, IIEP has trained two officers from the Albanian Ministry of Education on a full-time basis (1997/98 and 1998/99 sessions) and one as a Visiting Trainee (5 weeks).

At the request of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a training seminar on the objectives and techniques of sectoral analysis in education was organized in September, 1999.

The thirty-seven participants of the IIEP 1997/98 Annual Training Programme visited Iceland in April 1998 at the invitation of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and the Iceland National Commission for UNESCO.

The thirty-four participants of the IIEP 1999/2000 Annual Training Programme visited Sweden in April 2000 at the invitation of the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science and the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO.

Among the institutions that have signed a partnership agreement with IIEP and that co-operated with IIEP in 1996-2000 is the Institute of Management, Economics and Law in Education (IMELE), St Petersburg, the Russian Federation. In co-operation with this Institute and with the UNESCO National Commission of the Russian Federation, a Russian language version of IIEP’s Newsletter is produced and distributed.

IIEP is co-operating with the European Centre for Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU) to organize from October to December 2000 an experimental course through distance education for senior managers of university-industry relations of higher education institutions in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The course will use electronic mail and the web facilities to support interaction.

Policy Forum on the Management of University-Industry Relations was held at IIEP, in June 2000. The target audience was high level decision-makers in ministries of education and higher education institutions.

As part of its programme on management innovations in higher education IIEP issued in 1999 a case-study on ‘Quality management at the DeMontfort University in the United Kingdom’. IIEP will publish in 2000 a case study by Brian Wilcox entitled ‘Making School Inspection Visits more Effective: The English Experience’ as part of its programme of research on trends in school supervision.

The European countries continue to support IIEP and participate actively in its work. Close co-operation has been maintained with bilateral co-operation agencies from: Austria, Denmark, The Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland; and with the following foundations: The German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ), the German Foundation for International Development (DSE), the Italian Episcopal Conference and the European Training Foundation (ETF).

• UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) - Hamburg

The thematic focus of UIE is adult learning, literacy and non-formal education in the perspective of lifelong learning across borders, regions, cultures and age.

A wide variety of activities were carried out by UIE in 1998-2000, including a study on the financing of adult learning in civil society in Europe (1998-99) aimed at reviewing the different models of public financial support to non-governmental organizations in Europe in the field of adult learning and of approaches taken by countries for preserving the autonomy of non-governmental organizations while making them accountable for the support received.

Meetings organized recently by UIE include the European Seminar in the framework of ALPHA 99 (Ecological Approaches to Basic Education), Brno, Czech Republic, September 1998; EXPO 2000 Consultative Meeting, Hamburg, October 1998; Expert/Steering Committee Seminar: Global Community of Adult Education Through Information and Documentation: Developing a Network of Networks, Hamburg, October 1998; Consultation Meeting for the Preparation for the International Year of Old Persons (1999), Hamburg, December 1998; The future of Work and Adult Learning: Preparatory Meeting for the Second International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education, Hamburg, February 1999; Planning Meeting for an International Comparative Study on Intergenerational Learning, Dortmund, Germany April 1999; International Survey on Adult Education for Indigenous Peoples, Paris, October 1999; International Workshop on Adult Learning Policies, Quebec City, Canada, November 1999; and the First Steering Committee Meeting on Joint International Comparative Study ‘Interactive Intergenerational Learning’, Hamburg, 7-8 February 2000.

• Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) - Moscow

In UNESCO’s fields of competence, the new information and communication technologies constitute a major opportunity and a major challenge for international co-operation.

A major concern of UNESCO is that the new information and communication technologies be equitably shared and properly employed in order to narrow the gap between the haves and have-nots, or between the info-rich and the info-poor, and that no country be left on the sideways of the emerging information society.

It is with such expectations that the Moscow Institute was established in 1998. IITE should be seen as complementary to the existing system of UNESCO education institutes with the explicit mandate of contributing to the implementation of the Organization’s policies and strategies regarding the use of new information technologies in education, including distance education and teacher training.

IITE began several projects, such as ‘ICTs in Education: ‘State-of-the-Art, Needs and Perspectives’, ‘Education via the Internet’, ‘ICTs in Education for People with Special Needs’, ‘Distance Education: Structure, Methodology, Staff Development and Legal Aspects’, etc., which are supported by a number of European countries.