IV. HOW TO MOVE FORWARD IN LEARNING MORE SUCCESSFULLY TO LIVE TOGETHER: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR BROADENING THE DIALOGUE
Education for all for learning more successfully to live together encounters, -albeit with significant nuances- certain common challenges and the same type of fundamental problems worldwide. Education for who? For what? With which contents, which learning strategies and which teaching methods? With which structures? With which human and financial solutions?
A number of results derived from analysis of education systems have underlined how much, despite the differences due to their geographic location, to their history and their surrounding culture, educational systems resemble each other. Likewise, several researchers have brought to the fore increasingly marked transnational trends, for example in terms of curricula. But are these conscious convergences? Do these convergences have any meaning for learning more successfully to live together in a world where diversity and also inequalities are still very pronounced?
We may also justifiably wonder whether the issue of learning to live together in a world characterised by both increasing interdependence and reaffirmed diversity, has yet found its place on the international agenda. Significantly the Human Rights 2000 report does not bring up the question of the quality of education for living together more successfully. Would it not be desirable to have a more marked proactive attitude, with a view to taking into account more systematically and more clearly the requirements of an education for living together as a cornerstone of education for all?
There is also the question whether we have sufficient empirical knowledge on the skills which are essential for living together more successfully and on the curriculum characteristics and processes which would allow us to attain this objective.
In the words of the Dakar Framework for Action, “UNESCO will continue its mandated role in co-ordinating EFA partners and maintaining their collaborative momentum”. Particular importance is accorded “to the information of the monitoring report from the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE), the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) and, in particular, UNESCO Institute of Statistics, and inputs from Regional and Sub-regional EFA Forums ”(13).
How might the monitoring report be expanded regarding quality of education and in particular contents and teaching support for learning more successfully to live together?
There is still limited data for evaluating how education contributes to a training for living together. There are of course some analyses of students' acquired skills and of the curricula proposed to teachers, but very few are comparative. A priority area of international co-operation could be research into education and its application for the follow up of processes of change and as a support for education policies.
We have much less information on how curricula are drawn up, put into practice and on their real impact at classroom level. In addition, what research there is concerns almost exclusively the countries of the North, where educational research has a long tradition.
Generally management of knowledge on education, even in developed countries, is far from satisfactory. A recent OECD study points out that for education, research and development costs are about 0.3 % of GDP; by way of comparison they are from 5 to 7 % of sales for pharmacy. This same study also brings to the fore a problem of method. In health and engineering, there is a progression from basic research focused on innovation, applied research which gives it expression, and finally the transfer to the user, to a model in which technique can take precedence over science, in which the user takes part in the design. In education this type of interaction is extremely rare.
Politically, education remains basically a national responsibility; the Dakar Forum reiterated this. However an important question remains. Is it reasonable for each country to continue, most of the time, to advance alone, to seek answers alone, to try out solutions alone, when so many experiences are present elsewhere and the world, while diverse and multiple, is at the same time a single world? Is it ethical -and pragmatic- to only globalize trade and problems? Is it not time to put in place a better international strategy allowing us to try to resolve together a number of common problems?
UNESCO’s mission consists in simultaneously promoting the universality of certain values and in preserving the diversity of cultures. Should we therefore be considering an “international learning for living together”? As was stressed in the UNESCO Prospects issue on the ICE's forty-sixth session: “We must learn to accept the reality of the different character of others and the fact that it is improbable that they will change by themselves simply to please us. Learning to live with others implies that they have the right to remain others, also from the point of view of choice and organization of learning contents, educational environment and educational supports for succeeding in living together”.
But should we not also reaffirm the need to acquire, through education, values which are part of humanity's common heritage? While there is no question of reaching uniform contents or methods, should it not be possible to systematically exchange tested experiences, applied criteria, fertile practices, tools created for curriculum development, in order to help different actors find their own solutions more easily?
Training for development, and especially curriculum implementation is often too abstract and focused on the transmission of information rather than the building of skills. This training has demonstrated its limitations. How do we change outlook and contribute to training which takes better account of required skills and the experiences of others?
In many different areas numerous actors are involved in promoting education for living together. Reinforcement of partnerships is always to be desired and considered as a solution. What are the conditions for their success? How can we introduce and develop these partnerships?
Political dialogue on issues of education contents, learning strategies and teaching methods is still too frequently limited and above all uninventive in its methodologies, both within each country, and among the world's countries and regions. The succession and even simultaneous holding of international conferences may begin to engender weariness and demobilization. How can we use new technologies more effectively to reinforce political dialogue? How can we enrich it by using elements taken from compilation and analysis of innovation processes, whether in everyday school life or in promotion of successful policies for more successful learning to live together?
This forty-sixth session of the ICE could be the point of departure for a reinforced, deepened and renewed dialogue on all these issues crucial for the future of the planet. For while the primary responsibility rest with each of the Member states, there is also an international responsibility to improve quality of education for all the world's population.
The challenges of the twenty-first century are not those of 2020 or 2050, but already those of 2001. So it is important to act NOW.
13. World Forum on Education, Dakar Framework for Education, « Education For All: meeting our collective commitments ». Adopted by the World Forum on Education, Dakar (Senegal), 26-28 April 2000, p. 10, point 19. (Back)
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Last update:2-08-2001