Delors e
Delors e
Delors e
TREASURE WITHIN
H i g h l i g h t s
UNESCO PUBLISHING
Contents
Education:
the necessary Utopia Jacques Delors
Looking ahead
Tensions to be overcome
Designing and building our common future
Learning throughout life: the heartbeat of society
The stages and bridges of learning: a fresh approach
Getting the reform strategies right
Broadening international co-operation in the global village
7. Teachers in search of
new perspectives
The world comes into the classroom
Expectations and responsibilities
Teaching: an art and a science
The quality of teachers
Learning what and how to teach
Working teachers
The school and the community
The administration of the school
Drawing teachers into decision-making on educational matters
Favourable conditions for effective teaching
Pointers and recommendations
Contents
8. Choices for education:
the political factor
Choice of education means choice of society
The demand for education
Evaluation and public debate
Opportunities offered by innovation and decentralization
Involving the stakeholders in the educational undertaking
Encouraging genuine autonomy
The need for overall regulation of the system
Economic and financial choices
The force of financial constraints
Pointers for the future
Using the resources of the information society
The impact of the new technologies on society and on education
A wide-ranging debate
Pointers and recommendations
9. International co-operation:
educating the global village
Women and girls: education for equality
Education and social development
Making debt-swaps work for education
A UNESCO observatory for the new information technologies
From aid to partnership
Scientists, research and international exchanges
New tasks for UNESCO
Pointers and recommendations
EPILOGUE
Excellence in education:
investing in human talent In’am Al Mufti
APPENDICES
1. The work of the Commission
2. Members of the Commission
3. Mandate of the Commission
4. Distinguished advisers
5. Secretariat
6. Commission meetings
7. Individuals and institutions consulted
8. Follow-up
11
Jacques Delors
Education:
the necessary
Utopia
In confronting the many challenges that the future holds in store,
humankind sees in education an indispensable asset in its attempt to
attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice. As it concludes its
work, the Commission affirms its belief that education has a
fundamental role to play in personal and social development. The
Commission does not see education as a miracle cure or a magic
formula opening the door to a world in which all ideals will be attained,
but as one of the principal means available to foster a deeper and more
harmonious form of human development and thereby to reduce
poverty, exclusion, ignorance, oppression and war.
At a time when educational policies are being sharply criticized
or pushed – for economic and financial reasons – down to the bottom
of the agenda, the Commission wishes to share this conviction with
the widest possible audience, through its analyses, discussions and
recommendations.
Does the point need to be emphasized? The Commission was
thinking principally about the children and young people who will
take over from today’s generation of adults, the latter being all too
inclined to concentrate on their own problems. Education is also
12 Education:
Looking ahead
Some remarkable scientific discoveries and breakthroughs have been
made during the last twenty-five years. Many countries have emerged
from underdevelopment, and standards of living have continued to
rise, albeit at rates differing considerably from country to country.
Despite this, the prevailing mood of disenchantment forms a sharp con-
trast with the hopes born in the years just after the Second World War.
It may therefore be said that, in economic and social terms, progress
has brought with it disillusionment. This is evident in rising
unemployment and in the exclusion of growing numbers of people in
the rich countries. It is underscored by the continuing inequalities in
development throughout the world.1 While humankind is increasingly
aware of the threats facing its natural environment, the resources needed
to put matters right have not yet been allocated, despite a series of
international meetings, such as the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
and despite the serious warnings of natural disasters or major industrial
accidents. The truth is that all-out economic growth can no longer be
viewed as the ideal way of reconciling material progress with equity,
respect for the human condition and respect for the natural assets that
we have a duty to hand on in good condition to future generations.
We have by no means grasped all the implications of this as regards
both the ends and means of sustainable development and new forms
1. According to
UNCTAD studies,
of international co-operation. This issue will constitute one of the
average income in the major intellectual and political challenges of the next century.
least-developed
countries (560 million That should not, however, cause the developing countries to
inhabitants) is falling. disregard the classic forces driving growth, in particular as regards
The estimated figure is
$300 a year per their need to enter the world of science and technology, with all this
inhabitant as against
implies in terms of cultural adaptation and the modernization of
$906 for developing
countries and $21,598 mentalities.
for the industrialized
countries. Those who believed that the end of the Cold War held out the
14 Education:
Tensions to be overcome
To this end, we have to confront, the better to overcome them,
the main tensions that, although they are not new, will be
the necessary Utopia 15
These needs comprise both essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral
expression, numeracy, and problem solving) and the basic learning content
(such as knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) required by human beings to
be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity,
to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to
make informed decisions, and to continue learning. (World Declaration on
Education for All, Art. 1, para. 1.)
only with well-trained teachers but also with the wherewithal for
delivering education of a high standard, including books, modern
communication media, a suitable cultural and economic environ-
ment and so forth.
Conscious of the situation in schools today, the Commission lays
great emphasis on the quantity and quality of traditional teaching
materials such as books, and on new media such as information
technologies, which should be used with discernment and with active
pupil participation. For their part, teachers should work in teams,
particularly in secondary schools, thereby helping to achieve the
necessary flexibility in the courses of study on offer, thus obviating
many failures, bringing out some of the pupils’ natural talents, and
providing better academic and career guidance with a view to learning
continued throughout life.
The improvement of education, seen in this light, requires policy-
makers to face up squarely to their responsibilities. They cannot leave
it to market forces or to some kind of self-regulation to put things right
when they go wrong.
It is on the strength of its belief in the importance of policy-makers
that the Commission has stressed the permanence of values, the
challenges of future demands, and the duties of teachers and society;
they alone, taking all the factors into consideration, can generate the
public-interests debates that education – since it concerns everyone,
since it is our future that is at stake and since education can help to
improve the lot of one and all – so badly needs.
This naturally leads us to focus on the role of the public
authorities. They must propose clear options and, after broad
consultation with all those involved, choose policies that, regardless
of whether the education system is public, private or mixed, show the
way, establish the system’s foundations and its main thrusts, and
regulate the system through the necessary adjustments.
Naturally, all public policy decisions have financial
repercussions. The Commission does not underestimate this
difficulty. Without entering into the complexities of various
30 Education:
are in fact still immature, when instead of being carefree they are
worried about their future, the important thing is to provide them
with places where they can learn and discover, to give them the
wherewithal to think about their future and prepare for it, and to
offer them a choice of pathways suited to their abilities. It is also
important to ensure that the avenues ahead of them are not blocked
and that remedial action and in-course correction of their educational
careers are at all times possible.
Readapting slightly the words of the poet, who was lauding the virtues
of hard work, and referring instead to education – that is, everything
that humanity has learned about itself – we could have him say:
Jacques Delors
Chairman of the Commission
34
PART ONE
chapter 1
Pointers and recommendations
• Worldwide interdependence and feel that they are at the mercy of events
globalization are major forces in and have no say in the future of society,
contemporary life. They are already at work with the dangers that entails of a setback
and will leave a deep imprint on the to democracy and widespread revolt.
twenty-first century. They require that
overall consideration, extending well beyond • We must be guided by the Utopian aim
the fields of education and culture, be of steering the world towards greater
given, as of now, to the roles and structures mutual understanding, a greater sense of
of international organizations. responsibility and greater solidarity, through
acceptance of our spiritual and cultural
• The major danger is that of a gulf differences. Education, by providing access
opening up between a minority of people to knowledge for all, has precisely this
who are capable of finding their way universal task of helping people to
successfully about this new world that is understand the world and to understand
coming into being and the majority who others.
35
chapter 2
Pointers and recommendations
chapter 3
Pointers and recommendations
PART TWO
chapter 4
Pointers and recommendations
chapter 5
Pointers and recommendations
PART THREE
chapter 6
Pointers and recommendations
• A requirement valid for all countries, albeit in various courses followed in adolescence, no doors would ever be
forms and with different types of content – the closed in the future, including the doors of the school
: hence the emphasis itself. Equality of opportunity would then mean what it
on and its traditional basic says.
programmes – reading, writing, arithmetic – but also on
• should be central to the higher level of
the ability to express oneself in a language that lends
the system, even if, as is the case in many countries, there
itself to dialogue and understanding.
are other, non-university establishments of higher
• The need, which will be still greater tomorrow, for education.
receptivity to science and the world of science, which
• Universities would have vested in them four key
opens the door to the twenty-first century and its
functions:
scientific and technological upheavals.
1. To prepare students for research and teaching.
• The adaptation of to specific 2. To provide highly specialized training courses adapted
contexts, the most deprived countries as well as the most to the needs of economic and social life.
deprived section of the population, starting out with the 3. To be open to all, so as to cater for the many aspects
facts of everyday life, which affords opportunities for of lifelong education in the widest sense.
understanding natural phenomena and for different forms 4. International co-operation.
of socialization.
• The universities should also be able to speak out on
• The pressing needs of literacy work and basic ethical and social problems as entirely independent and
education for adults are to be kept in mind. fully responsible institutions exercising a kind of
intellectual authority that society needs to help it to
• In all cases, emphasis is to be placed on pupil–teacher
reflect, understand and act.
relations, since the most advanced technologies can be no
more than a back-up to the relationship (transmission, • The diversity of secondary schooling and the
dialogue and confrontation) between teacher and pupil. possibilities afforded by universities should provide a valid
answer to the challenges of mass education by dispelling
• Secondary education must be rethought in this general
the obsession with a one-and-only educational ‘king’s
context of learning throughout life. The key principle is to
highway’. Combined with more widespread application of
arrange for a variety of individual paths through schooling,
the practice of alternating periods of education with
without ever closing the door on the possibility of a
periods of work, these approaches can provide effective
subsequent return to the education system.
tools for fighting against school failure. The extension of
• Debates on selection and guidance would be greatly learning throughout life will require consideration of new
clarified if this principle were fully applied. Everyone procedures for certification that take account of acquired
would then feel that whatever the choices made or the competences.
40
chapter 7
Pointers and recommendations
• While the psychological and material many forms of study leave or sabbatical
situation of teachers differs greatly from leave. Those formulae, suitably adapted,
country to country,ban upgrading of their should be extended to all teachers.
status is essential if ‘learning throughout
life’ is to fulfil the central function • Even though teaching is essentially a
assigned to it by the Commission in the solitary activity, in the sense that each
advancement of our societies and the teacher is faced with his or her own
strengthening of mutual understanding responsibilities and professional duties,
among peoples. Their position as master or teamwork is essential, particularly at the
mistress in the classroom should be secondary level, in order to improve the
recognized by society and they should be quality of education and adapt it more
given the necessary authority and suitable closely to the special characteristics of
resources. classes or groups of pupils.
chapter 8
Pointers and recommendations
• Choosing a type of education means choices made must not imperil the
choosing a type of society. In all countries, coherence of the system as a whole, nor
such choices call for extensive public lead to other levels of education being
debate, based on an accurate evaluation of sacrificed.
education systems. The Commission invites
the political authorities to encourage such • It is essential that funding structures be
debate, in order to reach a democratic reviewed in the light of the principle that
consensus, this being the best route to learning should continue throughout
success for educational reform strategies. individuals’ lives. The Commission hence
feels that the proposed study-time
• The Commission advocates the entitlement, as briefly outlined in the
implementation of measures for involving report, deserves to be discussed and
the different persons and institutions active explored.
in society in educational decision-making:
administrative decentralization and the • The progress of the new information
autonomy of educational establishments are and communication technologies should
conducive in most cases, it believes, to the give rise to a general deliberation on access
development and generalization of to knowledge in the world of tomorrow. The
innovation. Commission recommends:
– the diversification and improvement of
• In view of the foregoing, the distance education through the use of the
Commission wishes to reaffirm the role of new technologies;
the political authority, which has the duty – greater use of those technologies in adult
clearly to define options and ensure overall education and especially in the in-service
regulation, making the required training of teachers;
adjustments: education is a community – the strengthening of developing
asset which cannot be regulated by market countries’ infrastructures and capabilities in
forces alone. this field and the dissemination of such
technologies throughout society; these are
• The Commission none the less does not in any case prerequisites to their use in
underrate the force of financial constraints formal education systems; and
and it advocates the bringing into operation – the launching of programmes for the
of public/private partnerships. In developing dissemination of the new technologies
countries, the public funding of basic under the auspices of UNESCO.
education remains a priority, but the
chapter 9
Pointers and recommendations
• The need for international co-operation – which itself • The gathering, at international level, of data on
has to be radically rethought – is felt also in the field of national investment in education should be encouraged,
education. This is an issue not only for education policy- in particular by the establishment of suitable indicators:
makers and the teaching profession but for all who play an total amount of private funds, investment by industry,
active part in community life. spending on non-formal education, etc.
• At the level of international co-operation, a policy of • A set of indicators should be developed for revealing
strong encouragement for the education of girls and the most serious dysfunctions of education systems, by
women should be promoted, in the spirit of the Beijing cross-relating various quantitative and qualitative data,
Conference. such as: level of spending on education, drop-out rates,
disparities in access, inefficiency of different parts of
• So-called aid policy should be made to evolve towards the system, poor-quality teaching, teachers’ status, etc.
partnership by fostering, among other things,
co-operation and exchanges within regional groupings. • With an eye to the future, a UNESCO observatory
should be set up to look into the new information
• A quarter of development aid should be devoted to technologies, their evolution and their foreseeable impact
the funding of education. on not only education systems but also on modern
societies.
• Debt swaps should be encouraged in order to offset
the adverse effect of adjustment policies and policies for • Intellectual co-operation in the field of education
the reduction of domestic and foreign deficits on should be encouraged through the intermediary of
educational spending. UNESCO: UNESCO professorships, Associated Schools,
equitable sharing of knowledge between countries,
• National education systems should be helped to gain dissemination of information technologies, and student,
strength by encouraging alliances and co-operation teacher and researcher exchanges.
between ministries at regional level and between countries
facing similar problems. • UNESCO’s normative action on behalf of Member
States, for instance in relation to the harmonization of
• Countries should be helped to stress the international national legislation with international instruments, should
dimension of the education provided (curricula, use of be intensified.
information technologies and international co-operation).
Appendices
The work of the Commission
In November 1991 the General Conference invited the Director-General ‘to convene
an international commission to reflect on education and learning for the twenty-
first century’. Federico Mayor requested Jacques Delors to chair the Commission,
with a group of fourteen other eminent figures from all over the world and from
a variety of cultural and professional backgrounds.
The International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century was
formally established at the beginning of 1993. Financed by UNESCO and working
with the assistance of a secretariat provided by the Organization, the Commission
was able to draw on the Organization’s valuable resources and international
experience, and on an impressive mass of information, but was completely
independent in carrying out its work and in preparing its recommendations.
UNESCO has on several previous occasions produced international studies
reviewing issues and priorities in education worldwide. In 1968, The World
Educational Crisis: A Systems Analysis, by Philip H. Coombs, then Director of
UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), drew on the work
of the Institute to examine the problems facing education, and to recommend far-
reaching innovations.
In 1971, in the wake of student upheavals in much of the world during the
previous three years, René Maheu (then Director-General of UNESCO), asked a
former French Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Edgar Faure, to chair a
seven-person panel entrusted with defining ‘the new aims to be assigned to
education as a result of the rapid changes in knowledge and in societies, the
demands of development, the aspirations of the individual, and the overriding need
for international understanding and peace’ and putting forward ‘suggestions
regarding the intellectual, human and financial means needed to attain the
objectives set’. Published in 1972 under the title Learning to Be, the report of the
Faure Commission had the great merit of firmly establishing the concept of lifelong
education at a time when traditional education systems were being challenged.
The first and perhaps the chief difficulty confronting the Commission chaired
by Jacques Delors concerned the extreme diversity of educational situations,
conceptions and structures. Related to this difficulty was the sheer quantity of
information available and the obvious impossibility, for the Commission, of
digesting more than a small proportion of it in the course of its work. It was thus
44 Appendices
obliged to be selective and to single out what was essential for the future, bearing
in mind both geopolitical, economic, social and cultural trends on the one hand
and, on the other, the part educational policies could play.
Six lines of inquiry were chosen, enabling the Commission to approach its task
from the angle of the aims (both individual and societal) of the learning process:
education and culture; education and citizenship; education and social cohesion;
education, work and employment; education and development; and education,
research and science. These six lines were complemented by three transverse
themes relating more directly to the functioning of education systems: communi-
cations technologies; teachers and teaching; and financing and management.
The method adopted by the Commission was to engage in as wide-ranging a
process of consultation as was possible in the time available. It held eight plenary
sessions, and the same number of working-group sessions, to examine both the
major topics chosen, and concerns and issues particular to one region or group of
countries. Participants in the working-group sessions were representative of a wide
range of professions and organizations directly and indirectly related to education,
formal and non-formal: teachers, researchers, students, government officials, and
people active in governmental and non-governmental organizations at national
and international levels. A series of presentations by distinguished individuals
enabled the Commission to hold in-depth exchanges on a wide range of topics
related in various degrees to education. Individual consultations were carried
out, face-to-face or in writing. A questionnaire was sent to all the National
Commissions for UNESCO, inviting them to submit documentation or unpublished
material: the response was very positive and the replies were studied carefully.
Non-governmental organizations were similarly consulted and in some cases
invited to participate in meetings. In the past two-and-a-half years, members of
the Commission, including its Chairman, also attended a series of governmental
and non-governmental meetings in which its work was discussed and ideas
exchanged. Many written submissions, commissioned or unsolicited, were sent to
the Commission. The Commission’s secretariat analysed a considerable volume of
documentation and provided the Commission’s members with summaries on a
variety of topics. The Commission proposes that, in addition to its report, UNESCO
should also publish the working documents produced for it.
45
Ro b e r to Ca rn ei ro ( Po r t u g a l )
President, TVI (Televisão Independente); former Minister of Education; Minister of
State, Portugal
A le k sa n dr a Ko r nh a us e r ( S l ov e nia )
Director, International Centre for Chemical Studies, Ljubljana; specialist on the
interface between industrial development and environmental protection
M yo ng Wo n Su hr (R e p u bli c o f Ko r e a )
Former Minister of Education; Chairman of the Presidential Commission for
Educational Reform in Korea (1985–87)
A l e x a n d r a D r a x l e r, S e c r e t a r y o f t h e C o m m i s s i o n
A secretariat will ensure the follow-up to the Commission’s work, by publishing
the background material and studies looking more closely into aspects of the
Commission’s deliberations or recommendations, by helping to organize, at the
request of governmental or non-governmental authorities, meetings to discuss the
findings of the Commission and by taking part in activities that will attempt to put
into practice some of the Commission’s recommendations. The address will
continue to be:
UNESCO
Education Sector
Unit for Education for the Twenty-first Century
7, place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP, France
Tel. (33 - 1) 45 68 11 23
Fax (33 - 1) 43 06 52 55
e-mail: [email protected]
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