UNESCO. General Conference; 30th; Records ... - unesdoc - Unesco

2.17 I now come to the UNESCO institutes. The debates on decentralization and the coordination it entails
were held at the special meeting devoted to the UNESCO education institutes. In their statements, the delegates
drew a distinction between the new institutes established within the Education Sector and the three existing
UNESCO institutes, namely the International Bureau of Education (IBE), the UNESCO Institute for Education
(UIE) and the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). They stressed the great experience acquired
by IBE, UIE and IIEP over the years, which had helped to promote their “capacity to learn” and had enabled
them to become true models today. They hoped, on the strength of the programme of activities submitted, that the
UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) would follow suit. Several delegates
expressed their support for the transformation of the International Bureau of Education into an international
centre for the content of education and referred to its four new functions in that context - to act as an observatory
of educational structures, contents and methods; to promote dialogue on educational policy; to strengthen
capacities for the adaptation of content; and to exchange and disseminate information. They welcomed the
preparation of the next International Conference on Education, to be held in 2001 on “Educational content and
learning strategies for living together in the twenty-first century: problems and solutions”.
2.18 Several delegates commended the activities of the International Institute for Educational Planning,
whose annual training programme enabled many of their key personnel to receive adequate training, thus
contributing to a lasting improvement in the planning of their respective education systems. They thanked the
Institute for the invaluable educational assistance provided for the reform of their education systems and called
for the development of its programmes in this field in order to serve a larger number of Member States,
especially in Africa. They stressed its vital role in transmitting experience and best practices and they referred to
the Institute’s “watch” function. Lastly, the delegates thanked Mr Hallak for the enormous amount of work he
had carried out in the course of his duties at IBE and IIEP, which would remain a source of inspiration for the
future.
2.19 Delegates from all regions also stressed the growing impact of the Fifth International Conference on
Adult Education in the various countries and the role of the UNESCO Institute for Education in providing
support to Member States for the follow-up to this Conference. The Institute had taken over the task of
disseminating the conclusions of the Conference, supplying information, monitoring ongoing activities and
supporting innovation and new adult education policies. The delegates laid particular emphasis on the
preparatory work carried out for the launching of United Nations Adult Learners’ Week on 8 September 2000 to
back up International Literacy Day, on UIE’s professional support for the renewal of educational approaches as
part of the International Decade for the World’s Indigenous People and on the observatory function performed by
the Hamburg Institute to assist Member States in rethinking their education policies in the context of education
throughout life.
2.20 Despite the undeniable success of these institutes’ activities, the Commission forcefully voiced its
concern at their proliferation and the low level of their financial resources in relation to the scale of the needs and
expectations of Member States. It was even said that the reduction of the funds allocated to basic education might
be due to the proliferation of these institutes. The response to this situation called for a comprehensive view of
educational activity and the establishment of stringent criteria for the establishment of any new institute. For
example, it was stressed that these institutes could be very useful in following up and applying the
recommendations made by world conferences. The institutes would thus act as effective tools for the execution of
Major Programme I. And in the long run they would restore to the Organization as a whole the guarantee of
quality and professionalism that everyone wanted.
2.21 Despite this harmony of views on better managed decentralization, some countries and regions wished to
have their own international institutes with a regional focus. The usefulness of such institutes was illustrated by
the International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa, based in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), the relevance of
which was reaffirmed many times. Similarly, speakers from Latin America and the Caribbean demanded that
treatment equivalent to that accorded to existing institutes be given to the International Institute for Higher
Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, which, while catering to their primary concerns, prided itself on
having an international scope. This idea was the subject of conflicting interpretations within the Commission.
2.22 Ladies and gentlemen, the discussion of draft resolutions by our Commission was preceded by a series
of direct meetings between the Bureau of the Commission and delegations which had submitted any draft
resolution that had financial implications. In the absence of a reserve for draft resolutions, and rather than simply
informing authors that their draft resolutions were being refused, the Bureau preferred to get together with them
to find a suitable imaginative response. The same approach was adopted when the resolution concerning
educational and cultural institutions in the occupied Arab territories was examined.
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