About Us
Renewed Mandate
The General Conference of UNESCO renewed in 2020 the mandate of its International Bureau of Education (UNESCO-IBE) to become UNESCO’s global focal point and platform for knowledge, dialogue, and cooperation on curriculum, contributing to UNESCO’swork in education through a holistic, inter-sectoral, and forward-looking vision.
Transforming Curriculum
Working on curricula goes beyond the enunciation and framing of learning objectives and the provision of implementation guidelines for pedagogy and assessment. Rather, and more so than ever in the context of the 21st century, it is about providing a compass to organize learning and learning paths so that children and youth, boys and girls alike, can become active and mindful citizens – of their communities, of their countries, and of the world.
Echoing the push towards a new social contract for education, it is IBE’s strategic intention, through this Medium-Term Strategy, to bring to life and translate into action a vision for curricula that is conducive to this evolution from the anomie of the individual to the intellectual and moral autonomy of the person as the bedrock of an active engagement with one’s environment and the world.
The strategy also draws on the IBE’s distinctiveness as an institution capable of putting curricular proposals into perspective and offering neutral, non-biased expert advice on possible ways forward to design, develop, revise, and update curricula.
Under the renewed mandate, UNESCO-IBE is working to:
- Consolidate and synergize the work of UNESCO in curriculum, fostering a forward-looking vision to contribute to equitable and inclusive education and sustainable development for all;
- Build a knowledge base on curriculum with the most advanced and cutting-edge research and comparative studies, making available methodological tools, curriculum prototypes, and good practices;
- Develop standard-setting norms and instruments in a curriculum that can guide and support Member States in the definition of their public policies and strategies and respond to their needs in developing and reforming curriculum.
