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In 1958, UNESCO’s 10 th General Conference passed a resolution callingfor “preliminary studies in 1959-1960 with a view to initiating a MajorProject on the extension of compulsory primary education in Asiancountries” (UNESCO, 1958, 10 C/Resolutions, Annex I, para. 53). Thereport of that study was delivered to participants prior to the RegionalMeeting of Representatives of Asian Member States on Primary andCompulsory Education held in Karachi, Pakistan, 28 December 1959 to9 January 1960. This meeting gave birth to the first comprehensiveregional co-operative effort in promoting universal primary educationthroughout Asia: what became known as the Karachi Plan.Representatives of the Member States 5 meeting in Karachi were firstpresented with a litany of facts and figures as to the sad state of educationin each of their countries. Ananda Guruge, then a young educationistfrom Sri Lanka, recalled that “the figures seemed to say everything…theyexplained our poverty, our backwardness, and our shamefulcomplacence” (Guruge, 1986, p. TWO/20). He goes on to tell howMalcolm Adiseshiah, then Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, and aman of charisma, rose to pull the delegates back to a more optimisticvision of the new world before them - a world that could and would betheirs for the making.In the end, the Karachi Plan called for no less than the “provision ofuniversal, compulsory and free primary education in Asia” (UNESCO,1960, p. 31). Furthermore, the representatives agreed that these goals forthe first seven years of schooling were to be achieved in just twenty yearsi.e. by 1980! The enthusiasm of independence seemed to engender thebelief that anything was possible. Even though today, forty years later,the goal of universal primary education is still elusive, the greatsignificance of the Karachi Plan is that the commitment had been made.As Acting Director-General of UNESCO Rene Maheu later remarked,“The Karachi Conference…marks an epoch in the history of UNESCO(sic). Indeed, for the first time, educators at the highest level in theirrespective countries made joint proposals to the governments of a vastregion; proposals definite both in quantity and quality, [to be] realizedwithin a definite time limit” (UNESCO, 1962, p. 45).__________________________5. The countries represented at Karachi included Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, China(Nationalist Republic), India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaya, Nepal, Pakistan,Philippines, and Thailand.The Karachi Plan proposed that regional institutes be established to trainkey educators as a means of building national capacities. Indeed, thehallmark of educational development in the 1960s was capacity building,The Building Blocks © 5