I once found a series of quotations about the impact oftechnology on education that I still find illuminating. The claimsbegan in 1841 with the statement that “the inventor or introducer

of the blackboard deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learningand science, if not among the greatest benefactors of mankind”. Next came thestatement in 1940 that “the motion picture is the most revolutionary instrumentintroduced into education since the printing press”. By 1957, however, anotherauthor could write that “it now seems clear, however, that television offers thegreatest opportunity for the advancement of education since the introduction ofprinting by moveable type”.

The next pundit ignored all that, claiming in 1962 that “programmed learning is thefirst major technological innovation in education since the invention of printing”. Bythen computers had arrived on the scene, giving rise to the comment, in 1967, that“the impact of computers on society, and hence on education, has been comparedto that of moveable type and the printing press since Gutenberg”. Finally – althoughI expect that the future will see plenty more hype as newer technologies appear –a conference in 2000 made the observation that “Internet and communicationtechnologies are revolutionizing the format and delivery of education”.

Juxtaposing these claims with the development of education over the past centuryinspires three comments. First, it is clearly not easy to create an educationalrevolution. Despite all these supposedly revolutionary innovations we see evolution,not revolution. Second, it is significant that four of these six quotations do notrefer back to the previous innovation but to the invention of printing. It seems thatthe development of printing did stimulate a real revolution in education, althoughits effects operated over many centuries. Third, whilst expecting any singletechnology magically to transform education is a chimera, we should not despair ofthe general potential of technology to improve education. The example of the largemulti-media distance-teaching universities – the mega-universities that now existin many countries – shows that the judicious use and blending of technologies cansimultaneously broaden access to education, improve its quality and lower the cost.

Indeed, some might actually call that a revolution!

N0 7October-December 2003

NEW TECHNOLOGIES: MIRAGE OR MIRACLE?

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INSIDE

John DanielAssistant Director-General for Education

The arrival of new information and communications technologies (ICTs)was heralded as a revolution for the world of learning and fired the hopes of many. But have ICTs fulfilled their promise of better and cheaper education for more students? Focus, a four-page dossier, reports.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

BRIEFSMcEFA: the debate

p. 10

LEARNING WORLDUNESCO helps equip Palestinian schools

p. 3

FOCUSThe ICT revolution

p. 4

The Newsletterof UNESCO’s

Education Sector

EDUCATION FOR ALLEducating children

with disabilitiesp. 9

Education TODAY No 72

LEARNING WORLD

Once shunned as a modest handicraft college, Bokgoni Technical High School inPretoria today has students flocking toattend. It now counts 1,300 students, upfrom 130 in 1997, and school performancehas soared. How did they do it? The shortanswer is that Bokgoni exploited its connec-tions with UNESCO’s Associated Schools Pro-ject Network (ASPnet), comprising some7,500 schools around the world.

Situated in one of the capital’s ever-growing poor black urban areas, the schoolis not immune to the social challenges facing the rest of the community: unabatedcrime, abject poverty and HIV/AIDS, that are

tearing the communityapart. Some 70 per cent ofthe students come from aninformal settlement, whereunemployment is reachingcataclysmic proportions.Teachers come face to facedaily with hungry pupils.But Bokgoni did not waitfor government inter-vention.

“We planted our gardenwith vegetables for ourneedy children. This wasalso informed by ASPnet’sprinciple of creating a pro-ductive and giving society,”says George Sono, a com-puter literacy teacher andASPnet coordinator.

Four years ago, the schooljoined hands with threeother ASPnet schools torefurbish a dilapidatedschool in the nearby town-ship – Reitumetse HighSchool. “We asked learnersto donate at least 5 Randand the response was over-whelming. We also spent anight playing games atClapham High, another ASP-net school, and selling stuff

to raise funds. Reitumetse High now looksbrighter and lively,” he says.

Fighting HIV/AIDS

Like the rest of the society, Bokgoni isfaced with a powerful enemy – HIV/AIDS.In the past six months thirteen parentshave died, adding still more students to the long list of South Africa’s orphans,explains Sono. “Sometimes we have threedeaths a week. And almost all are AIDS-related”. Deputy principal Bopape says thesituation is affecting learning and teaching.“We are faced with traumatized learnerswho need counselling, food and under-

standing. HIV/AIDS is threatening our edu-cation system,” he says.

Through the ASPnet philosophy of “prepar-ing children and young people to meet thechallenges of an increasingly complex andinter-dependent world,” the school has initi-ated a project to respond to the HIV/AIDSthreat. The students help AIDS orphans atschool and at a nearby hospital – the MohauCare Centre. They pay visits to the centreand donate some food and play with the chil-dren. Fundraising is a big challenge. “Tobring in some cash, they dance at local andnational functions and weddings,” saysdeputy principal Bopape.

Forming a government

“We realize that the only way to deal withthese problems is to encourage learners toget involved,” says Violet Raphiri, one of theteachers. The students have formed a “cabi-net”, with each one allocated a “Ministry” orportfolio – the Ministry for Environment,Education, Health, Sports and Welfare, etc.“As Health Minister my responsibility is tocome up with a plan that will help us spreadthe AIDS message to the school, youth andthe community,” says Kholofelo Mokwena, 16,a Grade 10 student.

Chairman of “the Cabinet”, Kgaohelo Ramo-hwebo, 16, says they have developed a proj-ect to help needy students with food anduniforms. “So we ask our past students todonate their uniforms to them.”

They are also battling to raise funds to starta cricket team, a sport confined to predomi-nantly white and up-market schools, because“we learnt from ASPnet that we should strivefor great achievements, ” says Kgaohelo.

The story of Bogkoni is repeated daily inmany an ASPnet school around the world.A global evaluation made public on ASPnet’s50th anniversary in August 2003 concludedthat ASPnet’s potential to drive new think-ing in education is unique.

Contact: Elisabeth Khawajkie, UNESCO ParisE-mail: e.khawajkie@unesco.org

Rina Ramollo and Retsebile Thamaga dance to raise funds for their school

A school with a viewDespite economic hardships, one South African school refuses to despair

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“We keep the children away from the frictionpoints where trouble might flare up,” sheadds, “and allow them access, under supervi-sion of course, to the school laboratorywhere they can work on useful experiments.”

When the school opened in 2001, Imran says,there were no funds for laboratory appli-ances. In normal circumstances, she wouldhave had to wait for seven years to get whatthe $500 bought her.

Basri Saleh, Director-General of Interna-tional and Public Relations in the Ministry ofEducation and Higher Education welcomesthe new scheme. “The mere idea of helpingas many needy schools as possible is a splen-did chance to move ahead,” he comments.“But,” he adds, “the living conditions remainextremely difficult and more is needed.”

Contact: Costanza Farina, UNESCO RamallahE-mail: c.farina@unesco.org

“The new books are more important thananything else”, says Tamer Nafe, a Grade 10pupil. “Now we have a variety of books onreligion, science and general information.These are essential to enrich our knowledgeof the world around us,” he adds.

Fear and violence

The Al Quds Primary School for Boys andGirls, another of the beneficiary schools,has two major problems, according toAmneh Imran, the school principal. “Thetensions here are very tough and thenthere’s the violence among children,” shesays. Located on the southern outskirts ofthe West Bank city of Nablus, the 237 pupilscome from the surrounding villages andnearby Balata refugee camp. “Boys are gen-erally violent toward boys, but sometimesthey become violent toward girls too,”Imran comments.

It was a nightmare for schoolmaster AbdulRahim Ahmad Qadous every morning as heentered the Beit Wazan Primary Schoolnear Nablus in the Palestinian Territories.“What would happen if one of the childrenfell off the staircase that has no handrail,”he used to ask himself. Today all is safe.A handrail has been fixed, thanks to a newUNESCO aid scheme.

The Beit Wazan Primary School is one of 460in the West Bank and Gaza that received$500 each from UNESCO in 2003. The bene-ficiary schools were selected among over2000 by the Palestinian Ministry of Edu-cation and Higher Education. The total disbursement was $230,000. The fundsserved to refurbish schools in urgent needof repair, provide new laboratory supplies,books and learning materials.

Dwindling resources

Due to the current crisis,schools are seriously lackingfunds and it is increasingly difficult to collect school feesfrom parents. The events ofthe last three years have madeit nearly impossible for manyfamilies to eke out a living.

Last year, for the Beit WazanSchool, for instance, tuitionfees brought in only $800, asopposed to the annual $3,000,usually collected. This was notenough to buy laboratory toolsor other needed equipment.

“The timing was perfect as theschool had hit one of its worstyears,” says Abdul RahimAhmad Qadous, the schoolmas-ter. His submission included alist of basic items, such as asport mattress, a CD player,sixteen library books, a fewgarden tools and the handrailfor the staircase, the source ofhis nightmares.

Better schools, better learningA UNESCO initiative helps equip over 400 needy schools in the Palestinian Territories

New learning materials ease up tensions among Palestinian schoolchildren

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Education TODAY No 74

A revolution. This is how the arrival of new information and communication technologies in schools were describedat the time. Interactive, entertaining and capable oftransferring data widely and instantly, it caught on likewildfire in the classroom. In rich countries at least. But has it ushered in the new era its advocates proclaimed?

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“It is destined to revolutionizeour educational system and (…)in a few years it will supplantlargely, if not entirely, the use

of textbooks.” The computer? A virtualworld linked by the Internet? No. This revo-lution was films, predicted in 1922 byThomas Edison, the American who inventedthe electric light bulb.

More than a century later, films have notreplaced school textbooks, any more thanradio or TV have replaced teachers. Yet theexperts always think such inventions willturn out to be absolutely vital for teachers.But radio and TV, though they have proveduseful (see box p. 6), have remained justtools, or even gadgets in the worst cases.They have not revolutionized the classroom.

Are today’s new information and communi-cation technologies (ICTs) really a turning-point? The Internet and the growth of digi-tal media fired the hopes of many. With oneclick, you could get information as easily ina remote Kenyan village as in Manhattan.But after several years of huge Internetexpansion, where are we? Has the heraldedrevolution really happened?

No genuine renewal

“ICTs have not eliminated the most pressingproblems that education systems face,”comments Vladimir Kinelev, Director of theUNESCO Institute for Information Technolo-gies in Education (IITE). The problem, hesays, is that “attempts to improve educationthrough the use of ICTs suffer from theabsence of sound education paradigms thatcould support genuine renewal.”

However, the new technologies are certainlyquite different from earlier media. “Thenovelty is that users can now link up witheach other and be interactive,” says RichardSweet, principal administrator in the OECD’sEducation and Training Division. “That’ssomething totally new. You can be muchmore active and creative.”

The relationship between time and spacehas changed and you no longer have to bephysically present to take a course. You canuse several media at the same time andtransmit material instantly and verycheaply. And you can customize teaching tofit the level of the pupil and present com-plex ideas vividly and effectively.

Miracle? “A geometry teacher who would need threeto five hours to explain a theory on theblackboard can now do it in just one usingcomputer visuals,” says Ryan Watkins, whoteaches educational technology at GeorgeWashington University, in the United States.New technology attracts students by beingmore flexible, entertaining and interactive.

Massive investment

Schools realized this and quickly adopted it.The thirty OECD member countries haveinvested massively in ICTs for education –$16 billion in 1999, or between 1 and 2 percent of all their education spending. Mostof the money went on equipment and infra-structure.

Internet penetration of schools has actuallybeen spectacular. In the United States, itsoared from 14 per cent in 1996 to 63 percent in 1999. It has grown fastest in highereducation. In 1999, more than 90 per cent ofAmerican students went online regularlyand 50 per cent every day (Merrill Lynch,2000). Even more striking, nearly 40 percent of courses included use of the Inter-net, compared with 25 per cent of them in1997 and 15 per cent in 1996. The arrival ofthe Web also greatly boosted distance

World Summit on theInformation SocietyUniversal access to information and education,freedom of expression and cultural diversity arethe four principles for future knowledgesocieties. This is UNESCO’s message to the WorldSummit on the Information Society to take placein Geneva, Switzerland, 10-12 December 2003.

UNESCO is planning a variety of special events tounderpin this message: a Ministerial Round TableMeeting during the 32nd Session of the GeneralConference in October 2003, a UNESCO High-LevelColloquium bringing together world leaders onthe eve of the Summit, and four side eventsdevoted respectively to education, culture,science and media, at the Summit meeting itself.

UNESCO is also publishing a series of ten titlessummarizing essential issues related to theinformation society.

More on: www.unesco.org/webworld

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Education TODAY No 76

So current educational inequalities mayvery well increase. In many countries, girlsare kept away from new technologies, just as they are kept out of school. In 2001, only22 per cent of Internet users in Asia werewomen, 38 per cent in Latin America andjust 6 per cent in the Middle East.

In addition, educational material is notalways easily exported. Much of it is made in

learning. United Kingdom’s Open University,founded in 1969, has been using multimediamaterial alongside face-to-face teaching.

For schools the benefits are twofold: it’s atool that helps learning and it also giveschildren key skills for the job marketbecause, unlike TV and radio, it calls for spe-cial abilities. “To use the new technologyproperly, you must know how to use variouscomputer programmes, how to choose rele-vant and serious information on the Weband how to use databases,” says Kurt Larsen,principle administrator at the OECD’s Cen-tre for Educational Research and Develop-ment. These are indispensable skills in thefuture information society.

The problem is that ICTs, the backbone ofglobalization, are still the reserve of richcountries. But some developing countrieshave seized on them. Between 1998 and2000, Internet users in Brazil increasedfrom 1.7 to 9.8 million and from 2,500 to25,000 in Uganda. OECD countries, however,still account for 79 per cent of the world’s400 million users. And, although South Asiahas 20 per cent of the world population,it has only 1 per cent of its Internet users.

Big contrasts

Investment in new technologies for poorschools, especially in Africa, where even themost basic tools are lacking, seems inappro-priate. When textbooks, chalk, drinking water

New Technologies: Mirage or Miracle?

and teachers are in short supply, such invest-ment is not seen as a priority.

Even in rich countries, there are big con-trasts between levels of ICT. For example, in1999, Norway had a computer for every fivesecondary school students, while overtwenty-five students in Belgium and morethan thirty-five in Portugal had to shareone machine.

TV and radio: the pioneersLong before computers and the Internet, radio and TV hadarrived in schools. From the early 1950s, educational radioprogrammes were used in classrooms and relayed by teachersalmost everywhere in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Morerecently, Indonesia has used radio to reach schoolchildrenscattered in the country’s outlying islands. In the 1990s, withhelp from UNESCO, Mongolia used radio to show women howto set up and run small businesses.

The educational possibilities of TV were also widely seized onbut with very mixed results. In 1960, China became the firstcountry to use TV and radio for distance learning in highereducation. In the 1970s, many thought these media could improve education in developing countries, and internationalorganizations supported production of televized secondaryschool courses, notably in Côte d’Ivoire and El Salvador.

But the results were disappointing. Teachers did not like suchinterference by the central government and the new methods

were very costly. Most of the projects stopped when foreignfunding dried up. They failed because they didn’t meet the realneeds of teachers who were provided inadequate assistancein using the technology, and the technology itself was oftenunreliable, according to Larry Cuban, professor of educationat Stanford University, in the United States.

One exception was the success of Telesecundaria, a TV projectlaunched in Mexico in 1965 to expand secondary education inremote and rural areas. Its national broadcasts contained thesame courses as in normal schools and went out twice a day bysatellite. The audience soared and in 2001, the project reckonedit had 963,000 pupils watching in 16,000 schools. Some estimatessaid the failure rate in these schools was lower than thesecondary school average.

Radio and TV are accessible in the very poorest regions andcontinue to play an important part in formal and non-formaleducation.

UNESCO: teacher training is keyHundreds of Cambodian teachers are currently being trained in basic ICT skillsto promote better learning. In Mozambique and South Africa, local communitiesparticipate in the development of gender-sensitive ICT packages based on localexperiences, knowledge and learning needs. On the Internet, a portal devotedto teacher training in ICT offers online resources(http://www.unescobkk.org/ips/ict/ict.htm).

These few examples give an idea of the variety of UNESCO’s projects to promote ICTs in education. Others are being launched in all regions, notably in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. They focus on training teachers and educators, assisting countriesin developing sound ICT policies and defining indicators to measure the impact of ICTs in the classroom.

UNESCO has also established an Intersectoral Working Group on Open and DistanceLearning on teacher education.

The UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) plays a leadingrole in strengthening national capacities in applying ICTs in education throughresearch, training and clearing-house activities.

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OECD agrees. “If schools don’t break withtheir old habits, ICTs won’t work and will justremain a supplementary tool,” commentsSweet.

New technologies have great promise andcan revolutionize learning but only if thoseinvolved give themselves the means to doso. Like any tool, it all depends on whatpeople do with it. “And we have to remem-ber,” says Draxler, “that learning also has anemotional side that can’t be handled by a machine.”

1. E-Learning: The Partnerships Challenge, OECD, 2001.2. Technologies for Education by Wadi D. Haddad andAlexandra Draxler. Produced for UNESCO by KnowledgeEnterprise, 2002.

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the United States, which complicates things.Schools can use programmes such as Wordwith scrappy knowledge of English but wouldneed to know more to follow an online math-ematics course.

Even in rich countries, where ICTs have beenin classrooms for several years now, thingsare far from ideal. New technologies have notyet proved effective everywhere, as shown bya survey done last year among Israeli school-children aged 9 to 13 by Joshua Angrist, ofthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT), and Victor Lavy, of Jerusalem’s HebrewUniversity. They compared marks obtained inmaths and Hebrew by 13-year-olds in schoolswith computers and found that, not only werethey no better, but they were even worse thanthose of students who didn’t have computers.

“There is little or no evidence that ICTs havefulfilled their early promise of better andcheaper education for more children,”according to the OECD1.

Teachers must adapt

It is not enough to put good computers andInternet connections in classrooms. Theyhave to be used properly. This means schoolsmust change their methods and find newways to convey knowledge. ICTs will be littleuse if they simply produce electronic versions of existing books or put classroomlessons online. The Internet, digital TV andelectronic publishing can take things muchfurther along.

Teachers, who can now be e-mailed out ofschool hours, also have to adapt. “New tech-nologies mean a teacher’s authority isbased less on what he or she knows than onhow they pass on what they know,” saysAlexandra Draxler, who put together thebook Technologies for Education2, publishedlast year by UNESCO.

But are schools willing to change? “This isone of the biggest challenges of ICTs,” saysCedric Wachholz, programme specialist inUNESCO Bangkok. “If pupils are just cuttingand pasting on the screen, they won’t learnanything. A lot of mistakes have been madeintroducing ICTs in schools. Some countrieshave bought an enormous amount of equip-ment without realizing how very differentthe technology is. Teachers have to betrained not only to use the tool but also tochange the way they teach.”

There is little or no evidence that ICTsimprove the quality of education

Computers in schools:10 points to avoid past errors

Ensure that in the initial stages people are not demoralized by weak or disastrousresults when working with computers.

Make provision for maintenance budgets. In the past, many attempts to bringcomputers to schools failed due to the shortcomings of the hardware.

Choose your software carefully. Fortunately, a dearth of software is no longer thebottleneck.

Train teachers, as lack of teacher training is the number one difficulty.

Get computers going immediately after their installation, in order to ensure thepolitical survival of the initiative.

Choose among the three schools of thought in the use of computers in schools.The first sees the computer as a teaching machine, be it for spelling or simplearithmetic. The second to develop thinking skills, and third to prepare students to usecomputers at work.

Don’t be over-ambitious in the beginning. The most lofty and noble use ofcomputers is to teach how to think. And this is where the danger lies. It requires along period of preparation of teachers.

Use the computer to save time, energy and drudgery. Its most unremarkable useis to drill students in arithmetic operations, solving equations, correcting spelling andso on. This is what has really worked in schools.

Check existing software and decide whether there are exceptional cases wherenew software needs to be commissioned.

Teach students to use computers as a productive tool. Teach them to use a wordprocessor, a spreadsheet, a database and graphic tools. The next task is to developstrategies to use these productivity tools. Keyboard training is a good way to start.

Based on a text by Claudio de Moura Castro, available on TechKnowLogia (www.techknowlogia.org)

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Education TODAY No 78

EDUCATION FOR ALL

Including every childNegative attitudes are the main obstacle to educating children with disabilities

Much more on

teachers still think itmeans extra work andshould be an extramuralactivity.

Despite the problems,many countries are makingefforts to reach out to thedisabled although the high cost of inclusiveeducation remains a major difficulty.

New global drive

A “Flagship” programme on EFA and the Rightto Education for Persons with Disabilities:Towards Inclusion was recently launched by a number of organizations to raiseawareness and lobby governments, donorsand NGOs. One of its aims is to ensure thateducating children with disabilities isincluded in national planning and adequatelyresourced. “Disabled people can no longer

rely on charity,” says Kicki Nordstrom,President of the World Blind Union.

Although figures are hard to come by, it isbelieved that few countries have includedinclusive education in their EFA planning.The World Bank-led Fast-Track fundinginitiative is currently in the process ofadding the education of children withdisability to its assessment guidelines, whichmeans that it will become a criterion forjoining the Initiative.

Contact: Kenneth Eklindh, UNESCO Parise-mail: k.eklindh@unesco.org

When did you become blind?In 1971, at the age of 41 I lost my eyesight

in a medical accident. I was an architect at thetime and lived in Beijing. After one year oftotal sadness, I thought of those blind childrenmore unfortunate than myself and in 1985,I started my work for the visually impaired.

What is the Golden Key Project?Golden Key is an NGO committed to

promoting education for China’s visuallyimpaired. Since 1996, the centre is operating in poverty-stricken areas, such as GuangxiZhuang and Inner Mongolia AutonomousRegions, where today, 95 per cent of blindchildren are in school. These children areenrolled in their own village and in the sameclassrooms as their sighted classmates. Theteachers receive special training and support.

In Guangxi alone, over 2,000 blind childrenwere enrolled, and some past pupils are alreadymaking their own living. Due to our success,the central government decided to promoteinclusive education in China.

If three measures could put the world’s disabled children into school, what

would they be?First, have the right to education for thedisabled respected. Second, promote inclusiveeducation, that is, enrolling disabled children in the nearest regular school. The schoolsshould adapt to meet the educational needs of these children. Third, have governments and NGOs co-operate. Governments have theadministrative force and power, and NGOs havethe passion, expertise and funding capacity.Together they can form a great alliance.

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questions to Xu BailunXu Bailun is blind and Director of the Golden Key ResearchCenter for Education for the Visually Impaired in China

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Jetha Murmu lives in south-east Nepal.Because he is blind, Jetha started school atage 11. He is now in Grade 5 and has a teacherwho knows Braille.

Jetha is one of the lucky few. More than 90per cent of disabled children in developingcountries are not in school. And disability willbe around for some time: for example, eachyear, due to vitamin A deficiency, 500,000lose part of their vision and insufficientiodine in mothers’ diets leaves millions ofbabies at risk of mental impairment.

“Negative attitudes are the main obstacleto schooling children with disabilities,” saysKenneth Eklindh of UNESCO’s Section forInclusive Education. “Some people believethat educating the disabled is pointless,that there are already too many problemseducating ‘normal’ children”, says Xu Bailun,who runs of the Golden Key Research Centerfor Education for the Visually Impaired inChina.

Inclusiveness

Most experts accept the principle ofinclusive education championed by the WorldConference on Special Needs Education(Salamanca, Spain) in 1994 – that all childrenshould learn together in regular schools.But things are not so simple. Schools must be equipped to respond to their needs andteachers prepared to accept them in theirclassrooms. The dilemma, says Fred Heddel ofInclusion International, “is that there is lessspecialized attention available in mainstreamschools, but if you want disabled children tobecome independent adults, it doesn’t makesense to exclude them early on”.

Dealing with inclusiveness in the classroomputs additional pressure on teachers,particularly if they have to apply thecurriculum rigidly, which is often the case,says Elkindh. “Teachers repeatedly findthemselves controlled by school inspectorswho are not open to inclusiveness,” he says.A Namibian case study from 2001 found that

Deaf pupils at Duang Prateep Foundation School in Bangkok

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World tourm On 10 June, Cambodia launched itsNational EFA Plan, in a ceremony whichbrought together 250 participants.The Prime Minister announced thatgovernment funding to education wouldincrease from 18 to 20 per cent of thenational budget.

m The 5th East and South East AsiaNational EFA Coordinators’ Meeting washeld in Bangkok on 10 September. Theirdiscussions focused on literacy,decentralization of EFA planning andchallenges in implementing the nationalplans.

m The First Forum on Education for Allin Central America took place inTegucigalpa, Honduras, 27-29 August. Itwas attended by Ministries of Education,EFA focal points, national commissions,civil society organizations, UN agenciesand the donor community.

m Nine countries in Latin America/Caribbean have developed their NationalEFA plans: Cuba, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador,Dominican Republic, Honduras,Nicaragua, Paraguay and Venezuela.El Salvador, Mexico and Panama areabout to officially approve theirs.

m The World Bank and UNICEForganized a 3-day workshop inOuagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 25-28 June, which brought togethersome 300 participants from East andCentral Africa. Participants discussedEFA funding options to increase access,particularly for girls and disadvantagedgroups.

m Regional consultations on adulteducation in the context of theCONFINTEA Mid-Term Review(see page 10) were held in Hammamat,Tunisia and Dakar, Senegal, in July.On that occasion the U.N. LiteracyDecade (2003-2012) was launched in the Arab States.

m On 8 July, UNESCO Beirut and theArab Resource Collective, a network ofNGOs, organized a meeting to discussEFA in Lebanon. The meeting chose theAl-Hariri Foundation as the NationalEFA/NGO focal point, which willhenceforth take the lead incoordinating EFA and in forming theme-based working groups.

The fourth meeting of the Working Group onEducation for All took place at UNESCO Parison 23 and 24 July. Attended by some fifty-sevenpeople representing countries, internationalagencies and civil society as well as twentyobservers, the Working Group’s task is tostrengthen the global alliance for achieving theEFA and the Millennium Development Goals.

Debates focused on the EFA “flagships”, and inparticular on the U.N. Girls’ Education Initiative(UNGEI), the HIV/AIDS and Education Initiative,and the U.N. Literacy Decade (2003-2012).

“Our aim was to reach an understanding aboutthe nature of the flagships, their links to eachother and their role at the country level,” saysAbhimanyu Singh, Lead Manager of the Dakar

EFA Working Group meets again

www.unesco.org/education/efa

Afghanistan’s Independent HighCommission for Education, charged inNovember 2002 to make proposals for anational education system, adopted itsreport in Kabul in early July. The report willnow be submitted for government approval.

The report emphasizes the principle of freebasic education, non-discrimination andbalanced educational development in allregions. The Commission recommends that all discriminatory constraints affecting the education of girls and women be eliminated.Proposals include strategies for capacity-building, educational governance andcommunity participation. Education for human rights, democracy and a culture ofpeace will be developed.

Basic education will be the cornerstone of Afghanistan’s educational objectives and a national EFA plan will be developed.The Commission recommends a nationalliteracy campaign and, as a priority,the provision of vocational training for out-of-school youth, including ex-combatants. The Commission’s reportalso addresses secondary and highereducation.

“Our work involved reflection, studies and extensive consultations with nationaland international experts,” says SaifR. Samady, the Commission’s Chairman.“I believe it contributes significantly to the development of education inAfghanistan”.

Developing Afghanistan’s education system

Follow-up Unit. Concern was expressed aboutthe potential contradiction between flagshipswhich exist as separate initiatives and a moreholistic approach to EFA. The Working Groupproposed closer in-country links betweenstakeholders to enhance the contribution offlagships to planning and implementing the EFAagenda.

Participants also agreed that the World Bank-led Fast Track funding initiative should be speeded up. Other discussions focused onthe Global EFA Monitoring Report, civil society’scontribution to EFA and planning for the ThirdHigh-Level Group Meeting, in New Delhi (10-12 November 2002).

Contact: Abhimanyu Singh, UNESCO ParisE-mail: abh.singh@unesco.org

Education TODAY No 710

BRIEFS

DEBATE

Spotlight on adult education Over 300 participants from around100 countries gathered at the CONFINTEAMid-Term Review (Bangkok, 6-11 September)to assess recent progress in adult educationand set targets to be evaluated at the nextInternational Conference on Adult Education(CONFINTEA VI) scheduled for 2009.

Country reports prepared for the conferencerevealed significant differences in whycountries promote adult education.Developing countries set their sights onbasic education and women’s empowerment

“Mr. Daniel’s views run in concert with countlesselites in governmental and non-governmentalcircles, who undemocratically make globaldevelopment policy, which is dictatorial. Theresult is that the Global South, with itsservitude-style McDonalized education, is yet tostay subservient to the Global North, while thelatter cooks up yet more altruistic schemes thatkeep the former in its dependent position.”Lisa Aubrey, Ohio University, Ghana and United States

“The one-size-fits-all hamburger has reachedthe point of diminishing returns. Attempts to‘personalize’ the burger have finally stoppedfooling people. No matter how you dress it up,you’re eating a hamburger, not exercisingpersonal freedom.”Patrick Farenga, Holt Associates, United States

“If Mr. Daniel equates education (or educationmaterial) with tools such as computers and cellphones, he may be excused as a product ofsome worldview that explains education as atool. However, we in India believe that learningshapes a person – that it is not a “tradable”commodity but a “creative process”.Ram Subramaniam, Samanvaya, India

McEFA?John Daniel’s editorial in Education Today No. 3 (October-December 2002)provoked reactions from several civil society representatives concerned about UNESCO’s vision of the Education for All initiative. Referring in his Editorial to the success of McDonald’s management model, Mr. Daniel calls for greater commoditization of learning material. Extracts from these reactions and Mr Daniel’s reply are reproduced here.

Join the full dialogue at www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/mceducationforall.htm andread John Daniel’s editorial on http://portal.unesco.org/education/higher_edito

with a view to achieving sustainable growth,while industrialized countries push lifelonglearning in order to meet the needs of thelabour market. Other reasons included:responding to an increase in anti-democraticmovements (Sweden), building the capacity oflegal services (Egypt), strengthening civilsociety (countries in transition), impartingskills in democracy and good governance(Slovenia) and building new state institutions(Nigeria).

In opening the conference, AssistantDirector-General for Education John Danielcalled on adult educators to focus less onadvocacy and instead “to seize on all newmethods, approaches, technologies and

modalities that can increase the scope,scale and efficiency of adult education”.

Contact: Maren Elfert, UNESCO Institute forEducation • E-mail: m.elfert@unesco.org

Top of the classThe best readers are Finnish children.But those in Japan, Hong Kong-China andthe Republic of Korea come top in mathsand science. And the poorest results are inLatin America, according to an OECD-UNESCOreport based on data from the OECD’sProgramme for International Student

“Mr. Daniel’s call falls under the category offundamentalism at a level which is deeperand, thus, more dangerous than what isusually referred to in common discourse.Believing that something is good for allpeople, and that someone at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology knowsit and someone at UNESCO can impose it,is fundamentalism par excellence…”Munir Fasheh, Arab Education Forum,the Palestinian Territories

“The problem is that McDonaldization ofeducation represents a lack of faith in eachand every human being’s capacities to decideupon and create their own learningcommunities, and assumes they cannot learnwithout a pre-determined set ofinstitutionalized options forced upon them.Worse yet, it holds in contempt those whodo not like its homogenized options –labeling these resistors as “uneducated”,“superstitious”, “backward”, etc.”Manish Jain and Shilpa Jain,Shikshantar, India

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Education TODAY No 7 11

AGENDA

OCTOBER 29 Sept. - 17 Oct.32nd Session of UNESCO’s General Conferencewww.unesco.org/confgen

3-4Ministerial Roundtable on the Quality of EducationOrganized by UNESCO Paris • Paris, FranceContact: mj.pigozzi@unesco.org

5World Teachers’ DayContact: r.halperin@unesco.org

9-10UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and KnowledgeOrganized by UNESCO and the International Council forSciences • Paris, FranceContact: k.pohjolainen@unesco.org

21-23The Role of Education Ministries in the Government’sResponse to HIV/AIDS in Central Asia • Organized by UNESCOAlmaty and other partners • Almaty, Kazakhstan Contact: a.khalafova@unesco.org

23-25Sub-Regional EFA Conference for the Baltic Countries Organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of theRepublic of Lithuania and the National Education Forum ofLithuania in co-operation with UNESCO • Vilnius, Lithuania Contact: VRVebra@aol.com

NOVEMBER 11-123rd Meeting of the High-Level Group on Education for All Organized by UNESCO Paris • New Delhi, IndiaContact: abh.singh@unesco.org

17-21 Meeting of Directors of Education of the Pacific Organized by UNESCO Apia, Cook Islands National Commissionand the Ministry of Education • Cook IslandsContact: e.tait@unesco.org

24-27Workshop on Gender and LiteraciesOrganized by UNESCO Dakar, UNICEF and the UNESCO Institutefor Education • Dakar, SenegalContact: c.medel-anonuevo@unesco.org

DECEMBER 6-15Sub-regional Training Workshop on Literacy and Non-FormalEducation as a means to Poverty Alleviation Organized UNESCO and the Ministry of Primary and MassEducation • Dhaka, Bangladesh Contact: a.rafique@unesco.org

8-10International Seminar on Protecting the Rights of StreetChildren: Combating HIV/AIDS and DiscriminationOrganized by UNESCO/UNAIDS • Bamako, MaliContact: l.saldari@unesco.org

19-21Fifth Ministerial Review Meeting of the Nine High-PopulationCountries (E-9) • Organized by UNESCO • Cairo, EgyptContact: m.yannarakis@unesco.org

m

Iam delighted by the robust correspondencegenerated on the Internet (a useful productof globalization) by my editorial in the issue

on Higher Education for Sale. One of UNESCO’sroles is to promote debate on key issues. I regret,however, that some contributors ignored myinjunction to ‘reach for our critical faculties’.Easy slogans and unwarranted generalizations do not advance the debate.

A particular irony was the correspondents whowrote from an anti-institutional perspective toattack, as being fundamentalist or undemocratic,the idea of making learning objects commoditieson the web. Surely the web is a wonderful mediumfor increasing individual choices and bypassinginstitutions? Although my editorial focused onhigher education some commentatorsextrapolated wildly to accuse me of some oddviews on the global EFA campaign.

UNESCO strongly urges the decentralizedmanagement of schools. I have just returned froman inspiring visit to India where I saw how givingresponsibility to the villages is driving thecountry rapidly towards EFA in many states.However, these village schools also want learningmaterials of quality, which means producing themat scale at state or national level. I call thatcommoditization and I am unrepentant aboutits virtues!

John Daniel

Assessment (PISA) to measure how ready 15-year-olds are to face the challenges ofa knowledge society. Tests were given toa sample of between 4,500 and 10,000schoolchildren in forty-three countries.

The report also showed that spending moreper pupil tended to produce better results,though not always. For example, Italy spendsnearly twice as much per student than theRepublic of Korea, but its results are not asgood. The report links these variations tothe quality of national education systems.Efficient and well-structured systems canhelp overcome many social and economicobstacles affecting a child’s ability to learn.

Contact: Yahhong Zhang, UNESCO Institute for Statistics •E-mail: zhangy@exchange.umontreal.ca

RESPONSE

BOOKSHELF

Education Today is a quarterly newsletter on trends and innovations in education, on worldwide efforts towards Education for All and on UNESCO’s own education activities. It is published by UNESCO’s Education Sector in Arabic,Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. All articles are free of copyright restrictions and can bereproduced provided Education Today is credited.Editorial staff: Anne Müller, Teresa Murtagh and Agnès BardonAssistant: Martine Kayser • Design: Pilote Corporate • Layout: Sylvaine BaeyensPhoto credits (cover): UNESCO/Dominique Roger, P. Wales, A. Kompanijcheko

Education Today, Executive Office, Education Sector, UNESCO • 7, place de Fontenoy • 75352 Paris 07 SP • France Tel: 33 1 45 68 21 27 • Fax: 33 1 45 68 56 26/27 • E-mail: t.murtagh@unesco.org

More news on: www.unesco.org/educationUnited Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization

Guidelines for Education in Situations of Emergency and Crisis –EFA Strategic Planning, edited by Kacem Bensalah. This 38-pagemanual, prepared to assist those elaborating national and regionalEFA Plans, deals with the main actions to be implemented inemergency situations. It focuses, inter alia, on strategic planning andhuman resource development, education for refugees, mechanismsfor allocation of resources in crisis situations, and coordinationmechanisms.

Toolkit for Promoting Gender Equality in Education. This toolkit aims to promote theEFA goal of gender parity by 2005 and genderequality by 2015 in Asia. It is the outcome ofnational and regional workshops in the contextof the Gender in Education Network in Asia(GENIA). It is intended to help EducationMinistries mainstream gender in educationpolicies. Among the tools it contains are “gender lenses” for analysing curriculum andtextbooks, gender responsiveness of EducationMinistry Departments and for measuring child-friendliness of schools. Available fromUNESCO Bangkok (gender@unescobkk.org)

HIV/AIDS and Education – A Strategic Approach. Published byUNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning, this paperpresents a overview of the relationship between HIV/AIDS and theeducation sector. It examines the use of educational settings topromote understanding and behaviour to limit the risk of infection.It also sets forth policy questions and priorities that every policy-maker faces in formulating concrete actions for success.http://portal.unesco.org/aids/iatt-education

Situation Analysis of Education in Iraq 2003. Once the best in the Arab world, Iraq’s education system has been debilitated by adecade of sanctions, war and looting. This analysis gives an overviewof the Iraqi education system and the major issues confronting it.It proposes urgent action to mobilize support for its reconstructionand renewal. This document was prepared prior to the March 2003conflict.

Jeunes et Formation Alternatives. Published by UNESCO Haiti and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, this documentpresents and analyses data and successful experiences in providingalternative education to Haitian youth, in particular those living indifficult circumstances. E-mail: B.Hadjadj@unesco.org

Developing Learning Communities –a case study. This document criticallyexamines the meaning of education andlearning in selected villages in India.It questions the capacity of formalschooling to cater to these variedlearning needs and proposes amethodology aimed at finding,supporting and promoting a pluralisticunderstanding of education. Publishedby UNESCO and Aide et Action.(ED-2003/WS/17)

Literacy, A UNESCO Perspective. The U.N. Literacy Decade (2003-2012) aims at tackling the challenge of giving the more than 800million illiterate adults access to literacy. This brochure presentsUNESCO’s perspective on literacy at the start of the Decade, tracingthe lines of international commitment, how the concept of literacyhas developed and how it is linked to social development.

Education, Work and the Future. This CD-Rom is a digital libraryof selected UNESCO documents in Technical and Vocational Educationand Training. This improved second version contains more than14 000 pages, covering a wide range of issues. The first edition waspublished in 2001.

Annual Meeting of the Collective Consultation of NGOs on EFA2003. This General Report and Recommendations for Joint Actionpresent the outcomes of the annual meeting of the CCNGO/EFANetwork held in Porto Alegre, 19-23 January 2003 in conjunction withthe World Social Forum. The meeting focused on promoting linkagesbetween quality education, civil society participation and alternativeglobalization.

New Education forAll Advocacy Pack This EFA Pack, contains a 6-minute video, a poster on the six Education-for-All goals,plus postcards and stickers.The materials exist in English,French and Spanish and thevideo is in PAL, SECAM and NTSC.