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| TRENDS
AND CHALLENGES OF BASIC EDUCATION IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA
AT WARSAW CONFERENCE |
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 Warsaw
(Poland), February 6 - Trends in basic education and the many
challenges on the road to ensuring the universal human right
to education are at the heart of debates at the Conference on
Education for All in Europe and North America which opened in
Warsaw on Sunday. The 3-day Conference has brought together
close to 250 participants, including 39 national delegations,
non-governmental organisations and the five intergovernmental
organisations in charge of the unprecedented global Education
for All 2000 Assessment. |
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| The
first day of the Conference featured the presentation of two
synthesis reports covering Western Europe and North America
on the one hand and Central and Eastern Europe on the other.
Based on national reports on educational developments in the
1990s, they highlighted differences and common characteristics
in the reform requirements of different countries experiencing
various degrees of hardship. The President of the Warsaw Conference,
Poland's Education Minister Miroslaw Handke, underscored some
of the chief reasons motivating educational reforms across the
region, notably: "the lack of capacity within the present education
system to adapt to the pace and scope of economic, social and
cultural change, the crisis of the educational role of the school
resulting from the predominance of the transmission of information
over the development of skills and the shaping of personality,
the lack of equal opportunities in the access to education at
all its levels." |
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| Speaking
about the comprehensive reform programme Poland launched this
year, Mr Handke underscored major problems facing countries
in transition 10 years after the collapse of Communism, though
some of them also concern the old and prosperous democracies:
"the low percentage of young people completing secondary and
higher education, the necessity to adapt the education system
to the provisions of the Constitution and the system reform
of the state, the necessity to adapt vocational education to
the changing needs of the market economy, the need to establish
closer links between schools at all levels and the family as
well as the local community." |
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| The
crying need to redress the balance in access to education between
rural and urban populations was of particular concern to the
Polish Minister, although the subsequent reports highlighted
similar discrepancies elsewhere. "35% of the adult population
in urban areas completed secondary education, while rural areas
reported somewhat less than 15%. 10% of the population living
in cities and towns completed higher education, the indicator
for rural areas is below 2%. Approximately one third of the
rural population under 24 years of age is unemployed; approximately
52% of Polish villagers have only completed primary school"
and both the number and quality of schools in rural areas are,
Mr Handke argued, inadequate. |
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| Unequal
access to existing educational provision was also a major source
of concern in the presentation of the report on 29 countries
in Western Europe and North America by Malcolm Skilbeck of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
…/ and in the report on Central and Eastern Europe which covered
20 countries by education expert Albert Motivans. Mr Skilbeck
particularly emphasised the influence of class on the educational
and subsequent professional success of learners while Mr Motivans
highlighted the issues of family background, ethnic origin and
geographic location. |
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| "Fiscal
constraints in Central and Eastern Europe have led to a decline
in the mobilisation of resources for education in many of the
region's countries and have had a negative impact on both access
to, and quality of, education", Mr Motivans said. He singled
out those countries which still have negative economic growth
and those affected by war, notably the former Yugoslavia. |
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| Mr
Motivans explained that "while schools generally continue operating
in the region, fiscal constraints mean that they rely more on
contributions from families to pay for supplies and extracurricular
activities" but "rising unemployment and poverty mean that households
[also] have fewer resources to devote to education." He further
pointed to a decline in real-term expenditure on education among
the star performers in the transition from Communism to a market
economy. Mr Motivans argued that there should be particular
concern about how the shrinking public resources for education
are shared. He said that there is a growing gap not only between
Eastern and Western Europe's educational achievements but also
between those of different population groups within the region
of Eastern and Central Europe with "worsening conditions for
those experiencing the worst economic hardships." |
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| Early
childhood education, whose importance for learners' later achievements
was recognised by all speakers, emerged as a particularly fragile
link in the educational chain. In Central and Eastern Europe,
it is most commonly sacrificed to fiscal constraint. In the
West, "with the exception of a few countries like France and
Belgium", Mr Skilbeck said, early childhood education and care
are generally insufficient. He also pointed to inadequate data
concerning early childhood education in most OECD countries. |
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| Mr
Skilbeck highlighted problems regarding the status and quality
of vocational education and training and to uneven standards
of performance among secondary education students, emphasising
the need to make education "more inclusive; not only for reasons
of justice but also for social cohesion." While stressing the
need for education to contribute to economic prosperity, he
argued that "the fruit of economic growth must be shared better"
and pointed to increased inequality in the distribution of wealth
over the 1990s. |
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| Although
Western Europe and North America enjoy higher standards and
longer education provision than most parts of the world, their
education systems must be redesigned "in the context of lifelong
learning for all," Mr Skilbeck argued, pointing to the constant
need to upgrade and adapt skills in a changing world. |
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| The
International Consultative Forum on Education for All, comprising
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank, is organising the
3-day Conference, hosted by the government of Poland. The Conference
will adopt a regional Plan of Action to be presented at the
World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal, April 26 - 28). At
the meeting, the international community will decide on a global
strategy to achieve quality education for all, as pledged by
155 states and some 150 organisations at the World Conference
on Education for All in Jomtien (Thailand) ten years ago. |
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EFA
Website: http://www.unesco.org/education/efa
Contact: Press Room, tel. 657 81 70/71/72,
Hotel Victoria Inter-Continental, 2nd floor |
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