Reunión especial On Saturday 8 September, the Director-General of UNESCO chaired a special meeting on The Involvement of Society in Action for Education for All. The theme for the Special Meeting, The Involvement of Civil Society in Education for All, reflected 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, explored 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 constituted the bridge to the Special Meeting which discussed 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 focused on the involvement of civil society in policy formation processes understood more broadly than the development of specific (EFA) plans. This was discussed through country experiences from sub-Saharan Africa (Prof. C. Ameyaw-Akumfi, Hon. Minister of Education and Ms Georgina Quaisie, Action Aid, Ghana) , South Asia (Mr L. P. Debcote, Secretary, Ministry of Education and Dr Bal Gopal Baidya, South Asia Partnership, Nepal) and a least developed country (Dr Abou Ghanim Fadhel, Hon. Minister of Education and Dr Abdullah Mubarek Al Ghaithi, Teachers' Union, Yemen) . Each country delegation, which consisted of a high-level government representative and a high-level NGO representative, addressed 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 were followed by a response by Fred van Leeuwen, General Secretary of Education International, the world's largest federation of educators. The meeting was chaired, opened and closed by the Director-General of UNESCO. Address pronounced by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura Director-General of UNESCO at the opening of the session

La Medalla Comenius La Medalla Comenius, creada conjuntamente por el Ministerio de Educación Nacional, Juventud y Deporte de la República Checa y la UNESCO en 1992, a fin de recompensar las iniciativas y los logros innovadores en el campo de la investigación y de la renovación educativa, fue otorgada el jueves 6 de septiembre, por el Director General Adjunto de la educación de la UNESCO, a los laureados seleccionados entre educadores individuales, grupos de educadores o instituciones. El Ministerio de Educación Nacional, Juventud y Deporte de la República Checa, Sr. Eduard Zeman fue presente a la ceremonia. Más información sobre la Medalla Comenius Comunicado de prensa

Eventos especiales Durante la Conferencia tuven lugar otros acontecimientos especiales: exposiciones, presentación de programas sobre el sitio Web, el vidéo «Experiencia educativas para aprender a vivir mejor juntos», juegos de simulación para la educación preventiva contra el VIH/SIDA en el medio escolar, etc. El proyecto BRIDGE fue presentado durante la Conferencia. Se trata de un proyecto realizado por un equipo multicultural de jóvenes profesionales de la OIE. Habrán identificado «buenas prácticas» en educación relacionadas a los seis temas de los talleres de la CIE. Los criterios de elección para los proyectos son: a) su vínculo con los temas de la CIE; b) su originalidad; c) su evaluación hecha por un organismo exterior; d) su facilidad para ser aplicado en otro país o región. Más información sobre el proyecto BRIDGE

Comunicados de prensa

12.09.2001 UNESCO Press Release No. 2001-96 Education ministers call for reforms to boost quality education Geneva, September 8 - 80 education ministers and some 600 delegates from 127 nations today called for education reform, notably a better policy dialogue with civil society, a greater involvement of teachers in education policy-making, and a bolder set of actions to close the gap between quantitative advances in school enrollment and qualitative improvements in teaching. The 46th International Conference on Education (ICE) -- the first to be convened in five years -- closed today with the adoption of a four-page document that illustrates the need to boost the quality of teaching in the face of scientific and technological advances, multiculturalism and globalization. The ICE “conclusions and proposals for action” notably calls for the training of education decision-makers to discuss and harmonize policy formulation with other actors -- notably civil society organizations (CSOs) - in order to best identify common goals, to broaden consensus and to mobilize productive partnerships. UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura today advocated an expanded role for CSOs in a speech at the opening of a “Special Session on the Involvement of Civil Society in Education for All”. In his address to the education ministers and delegates, Mr Matsuura decried the “ideas gap” between states and civil society and illustrated the role that CSOs play as innovators, informed critics, advocates, and alternative service providers in education. He outlined UNESCO’s actions over the past year to try to build “a new culture of policy dialogue” involving CSOs and NGOs as full “policy partners” alongside UNESCO’s 188 Member States. In addition to pledging a broader cooperation in education policy-making, the ministers and delegates stressed the need to reshape and update their school curricula to reflect: the economic and social changes set in motion by globalization, migration and cultural diversity; the ethical dimensions of scientific and technological progress; the contributions that can result from integrating technologies into the learning process; the need to prepare societies for a global era of communication, not just in official national languages but in indigenous and foreign languages; the need to develop school curricula that best ensure relevance at the local, national and international level. The final conference document urges policy-shapers to facilitate a genuine involvement by teachers and students in decision-making through training and other means, and advocates practical research, curriculum development and teaching methodologies related to the conference’s unifying theme: “Learning to Live Together”. UNESCO’s Geneva-based International Bureau of Education organized the ICE meeting from 5-8 September. The conference’s conclusions and proposals will next be presented at the 31st session of UNESCO’s General Conference (15 October to 3 November 2001).

07.09.2001 UNESCO Press Release No. 2001-94 UNESCO Comenius Medal awarded to leaders in literacy and education Geneva, September 6 - Integrating disabled children into a mainstream Bulgarian school, building the first pan-African teachers organization, sending thousands of university student volunteers to work in Brazil's slums, UNESCO today honoured these and other initiatives around the world at the presentation of the 2001 UNESCO Comenius Medals. John Daniel, head of UNESCO's Education Sector, and Pieter de Meijer, president of the International Bureau of Education (IBE) Council, presented the medals to eight laureates and institutions in a ceremony at the 46th International Conference on Education, a four-day meeting attended by 80 Ministers of Education and some 800 teachers and delegates from 180 countries. At the award ceremony, Mr Daniel called the denial of basic education to hundreds of millions of people "the greatest moral challenge of our time". He said that one in four adults are illiterate and that one third of all children below the age of six do not receive early childhood education. The 2001 Comenius Medal went to the following laureates: Founded in 1923, Bulgaria's Atanas Bourov machine-building vocational school is the first in Bulgaria where disabled children have been integrated successfully into a mainstream school. Beginning with the 1999-2000 school year, 75 disabled students were integrated into the school after parents could find no other opportunities for their children to continue their studies. The Comunidade Solidária project of Brazil was cited for combating poverty and social exclusion through two flagship programmes. Universidade Solidária engages university students in community work in Brazil's poorest neighbourhoods. By the end of 2001, the initiative will have counted the participation of more than 12,000 students from 160 universities. Alfabetização Solidária is a national movement to eradicate illiteracy. The Life Science Project 1990-2000 of the Namibian Ministry of Basic Education and Culture was cited for being a "spearhead" of national educational reform and a rare example of an initiative where "classroom practice has influenced policy and curriculum development". The project has trained 1,800 science teachers at the junior secondary level, through the support of DANIDA and co-implemented by IBIS, a Danish NGO. Sook Jong Lee of the Republic of Korea is one of the world's leading scholars on Jan Amos Comenius. In a speech at the ceremony, Mr Lee highlighted the "incomparable contributions" of the 17th century Czech humanist and theologian, a homeless refugee who went on to author nearly 200 books and to promote lasting reforms in education and society. Mohammed Abdul Kader Ahmed of Bahrain was cited for his "modern methods in teaching Arabic language to non-native speakers." He is the author of more than forty books on pedagogy and curriculum development in the Arab world. Thomas Ango Bediako of Ghana is a co-founder of the All-Africa Teacher's Organization and initiated the launch of the Pan-African Centre to provide services to teacher's organizations in Africa. Mr Ango Bediako currently is the African regional coordinator for Education International, the world's largest educators' federation. Dr Pablo Latapí Sarre of Mexico was cited as "one of the founding fathers of educational research in Latin America." He founded the first educational journal in Mexico and was one of the leading figures behind the establishment of the Citizen's Observatory of Education (Observatorio Ciudadano de Educación) and the Centro de Estudios Educativos. A posthumous medal was awarded to Yves Brunsvick of France, a fervent advocate of new teaching methods for French as a second language during his 30-year teaching career at the Sorbonne. Mr Brunsvick, a former president of the IBE Council, also served as secretary general of the French National Commission to UNESCO from 1958-1990. The Comenius Medal was established in 1992 by the government of the Czech Republic and UNESCO to honour contributions to teaching excellence and to highlight the originality or effectiveness of pedagogical methods.

UNESCO PRESS 05.09.2001 Delegates from 180 countries to examine new challenges, "best practices" in education When education ministers and delegates from more than 180 nations convene to discuss new challenges and critical policy choices at the 46th International Conference on Education (5-8 September 2001, Geneva), they can look back on a past decade shaped by both positive and negative trends in education. *   Since 1990, the world's illiterate population has declined only slightly from 895 million to 875 million today. If the status quo in education policy continues, one in every ten young adults (15-24 years old) will be illiterate in ten years time. *   Donor aid devoted to education accounts for 2% of education spending worldwide. Between 1990 and 1997, donor aid for education actually declined (from US$3.64 billion to US$3.55 billion). *   The UN estimates that, on average, an additional $7 billion dollars per year must be spent over the next decade in order to educate all the children in the world - less than the amount Europeans spend annually on ice cream. *   In South Asia, nearly three-in-five women are still illiterate today (compared to one-in-three men). Of the estimated 875 million illiterates worldwide, some 580 million (or two-thirds) are women and girls. Since 1990 several positive trends also have emerged: *   Primary net enrolment ratios in the Latin American and Caribbean region have risen from 84% in 1990 to 94% in 1998, in the process halving the out-of-school child population from 11.4 million to 4.8 million. During this same period, developing countries as a whole increased net enrolment for children of primary school age from 78% to 82%. *   Over the past decade, the working-age population (15-64 years) in every region of the world has expanded more rapidly than the population of children below the age of 15. As fertility rates continue to fall over the coming decades, many countries in both the developed and developing regions will have an opportunity to better meet the educational requirements of school-age children. *   Since 1990, literacy rates for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa have risen from 41% to 54% of the population, while in Arab States they have climbed from 37% to 50%. *   Among 15-24 year olds, little or no gender disparity exists in literacy rates in Latin America & the Caribbean, East Asia and Oceania as well as the Europe and North America regions. In addition, women now make up nearly half (48%) of students enrolled in higher education worldwide. This year's International Conference on Education - organized by the International Bureau of Education (IBE) of UNESCO - will draw attention to some 100 "Best Practices" in education from around the world, particularly initiatives that might be transferable from one region or context to another. These include South Africa's "40 schools project" to directly assist victims of violence and involve both teachers and students in the promotion of national reconciliation; Canada's school curriculum for Nunavut, a newly self-governing Inuit territory; and Malaysia's Mobile Internet Unit's effort to reach even the country's most rural and remote communities. The unifying theme of the conference is: "Education for All for Learning to Live Together". Conference delegates - including around 80 Ministers of Education - will examine and debate practical policy options on six timely themes: 1.   Adapting school curricula to the ethical dimensions of rapid scientific and technological advances. A workshop - organized by UNESCO and the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, La Villette, Paris - will further discuss science education reform, basic science teaching, methodologies for interdisciplinarity, and other themes. 2.   Designing curricula to combat social exclusion and violence. The Ministry of Education of Argentina and the Institut Universitaire d'Etudes du Développment (IUED, Geneva) will organize a workshop to discuss how the content and processes of formal education may relate to social exclusion and patterns of violence. 3.   Introducing educational initiatives that narrow the digital divide. A workshop - funded by the governments of Norway and Finland - will advocate policy choices that narrow the gap between the information rich and poor, and explore the potential new technologies have in improving learning, teaching, quality, management and delivery of education. 4.   Integrating language-teaching policies and other strategies to broaden understanding. A workshop - financed by the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands - will highlight ways to balance requirements for mono-lingual national curricula with the challenge of improving minority and foreign-language teaching at school. 5.   Shaping curricula to recognize cultural and linguistic diversity. A workshop - organized with the Intercultural Bilingual Education Training Programme for the Andean Countries - will focus on the integration of cultural diversity into the teaching of common values and democratic citizenship. 6.   Citizenship education: learning at school and in society. A workshop - funded by the Danish Ministry of Education - will examine the role of schools in preparing young people for active participation in and analytical judgement of the democratic process, as well as education's role in defending common values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The conference also aims to focus the attention of policy-makers on a global action plan that commits governments to carry forward the most ambitious inter-UN agency campaign ever launched to eradicate illiteracy and achieve universal, quality Education for All (EFA) targets by 2015, in line with a framework for action adopted in April 2000 by more than 180 nations at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal. UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura will chair a special meeting, beginning at 9.30 a.m. on September 8, on the involvement of civil society in promoting Education for All.

Ginebra, 17 de agosto de 2001 ¿Cuál es la responsabilidad de la educación en el mundo de hoy? En los años recientes hemos podido reflexionar sobre el legado del siglo XX: Fue un período en el que la humanidad mató a alrededor de 180 millones de personas en diversas guerras y conflictos. La Primera y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el genocidio en Ruanda, las guerras civiles en los Balcanes, la guerra del Golfo, las masacres llevadas a cabo por dictaduras latinoamericanas - éstos son solo algunos ejemplos. Pero por todo el mundo el siglo XX fue también un período de muy significativos avances en la escolarización de niños, niñas y jóvenes. De cara a esta tensión surge la pregunta respecto de qué podemos hacer para mejorar la calidad de la educación para todos para vivir juntos en paz. Continuando con una tradición que comenzó entre la Primera y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, los Ministros de Educación de más de 180 países se encontrarán en el marco de la Conferencia Internacional de Educación de la UNESCO, cuya cuadragésima sexta reunión tendrá lugar en Ginebra, del 5 al 8 de septiembre de este año 2001, organizada por la Oficina Internacional de Educación (OIE). Los ministros y sus colaboradores intercambiarán sus experiencias y dialogarán sobre problemas y soluciones relacionados con la ciudadanía, la búsqueda para la cohesión social, la tensión entre la promoción de valores universales y la diversidad cultural, el aprendizaje de lenguas para una mejor comunicación y para una comprensión mutua, los nuevos desafíos de las ciencias naturales y las oportunidades y riesgos resultantes de la incorporación de las nuevas tecnologías como instrumentos de la sociedad del conocimiento. Cuando se debatió acerca de la estructura y la metodología de la Conferencia, el Consejo de la OIE expresó su deseo de limitar en la medida de lo posible los "ritualismos" para favorecer los intercambios y el diálogo. Por eso el trabajo será organizado principalmente a la manera de paneles de discusión en el marco de dos grandes debates y seis talleres. Los moderadores y panelistas provenientes tanto del mundo de la política, como de la investigación académica, del periodismo y de la sociedad civil darán comienzo a los debates abiertos a todos los participantes de la Conferencia. La voz de los educadores tendrá también en esta Conferencia un lugar preferencial, reconocido y promovido por los organizadores. La Conferencia será precedida por una conferencia de prensa dada por Martine Brunschwig Graf, Presidente del Departamento de Instrucción Pública de la República y del Cantón de Ginebra, John Daniel, Subdirector General de la UNESCO para Educación y Cecilia Braslavsky, Directora de la OIE. Tendrá lugar a las 9:30 a.m. del día 4 de septiembre de 2001 en el Palacio de las Naciones. Más de 100 mensajes de Ministros provenientes de todas las regiones del mundo estarán ya disponibles el primer día de la Conferencia. Los documentos de trabajo y las "mejores prácticas" puestas en marcha en diversos países serán gradualmente publicados en el sitio web de la Conferencia. En la Sala de Entrada del Centro de la Conferencia Internacional se llevará a cabo una exhibición de los libros, documentos, CD-ROM y videos de la UNESCO. Se hará también una presentación especial del proyecto BRIDGE de la OIE. Otras organizaciones, incluidas Educación Internacional y ONUSIDA, presentarán asimismo sus materiales. Durante la Conferencia, el Centro de Prensa estará ubicado en la oficina E122, Nivel -1 del Centro de la Conferencia Internacional. Para mayor información sírvase contactar a: Sra. Nadia Sikorsky o el Secretariado de la Conferencia Internacional de Educación : Oficina Internacional de Educación C.P 199 CH-1211 Ginebra 20 Tel. (41 22) 917 78 25 Fax (41 22) 917 78 01.