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UNESCO Report of the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century (compendium); 2010 UNESCO Report of the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century.

Jacques Delors, ln’am Al Mufti, lsao Amagi, Roberto Cameiro, Fay Chung, Bronislaw Geremek William Gorham, Aleksandra Kornhauser, Michael Manley, Marisela Padrón Quero, Marie-Angélique Savané, Karan Singh, Rodolfo Stavenhagen Myong Won. Suhr, Zhou Nanzhao.

Index

• The prospective framework.
• The tensions that must be overcome.
• Thinking and building our common future.
• Implement lifelong education within society.
• Reconsider and unite the different stages of education.
• Successfully apply the reform strategies.
• Extend international cooperation in the global village.

Chapter 1.

• From the grassroots community to global society.
• An increasingly populated planet.
• Towards a globalization of fields of human activity.
• Universal communication.
• The multiple faces of planetary interdependence.
• A world subject to many risks.
• The local and the global.
• Understand the world, understand the other.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 2.

• Education in the face of the crisis of the social bond.
• Education and the fight against exclusions.
• Education and social dynamics: some principles for action.
• Democratic participation.
• Civic education and citizen practices.
• Information societies and educational societies.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 3

• A very unequal global economic growth.
• Demand for an education for economic purposes.
• Unequal distribution of cognitive resources.
• Women’s participation in education, an essential lever for development.
• A necessary questioning: the damages caused by progress.
• Economic growth and human development.
• Education for human development.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 4. The four pillars of education.

• Learning to know.
• Learning to do.
• From the notion of qualification to that of competence.
• The “dematerialization” of work and service activities in the wage sector.
• Work in the unstructured economy.
• Learning to live together, learning to live with others.
• Discovering the other.
• Striving towards common goals.
• Learning to be.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 5.

• A democratic imperative.
• A multidimensional education.
• New times, new fields.
• Education at the very heart of society.
• Towards educational synergies.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 6. From basic education to university

• A lifelong passport: basic education
  • Early childhood education Children with specific needs Basic education and adult literacy.
  • Community participation and responsibility
• Secondary education, the cornerstone of a lifetime.
  • Diversity in secondary education.
• Professional guidance.
  • The traditional and new missions of higher education.
  • A place where one learns and a source of knowledge.
  • Higher education and the evolution of the labor market.
  • The university, a space for culture and study open to all.
  • Higher education and international cooperation.
• An imperative: combat school failure.
• Recognize the competencies acquired thanks to new modes of certification.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 7. Teaching staff in search of new perspectives

• A school open to the world.
• Expectations and responsibilities.
• Teaching: an art and a science.
• The quality of teaching staff.
• Learn what needs to be taught and how to teach it.
• Teaching staff in action.
  • The school and the community.
  • School administration.
  • Involve teachers in decisions regarding education.
  • Conducive conditions for effective teaching.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 8. The role of the politician: making decisions in education

• Educational decisions, societal decisions.
• The demand for education. Public evaluation and debate. Possibilities offered by innovation and decentralization.
• Involving different stakeholders in the educational project.
• Promote genuine autonomy for educational establishments.
• Need for general regulation of the system.
• Economic and financial decisions.
• The weight of financial limitations.
• Guidelines for the future. Use of the resources offered by the information society.
• Impact of new technologies on society and education.
• A debate that greatly concerns the future.
• Clues and recommendations.

Chapter 9.International cooperation: educating the global village

• Women and girls: an education for equality.
• Education and social development.
• Promote the conversion of debts into benefits for education
• In favor of a UNESCO observatory on new information technologies.
• From assistance to equal footing collaboration.
• Scientists, research and international exchanges.
• A renewed mission for UNESCO.
• Clues and recommendations.

Epilogue

• Excellence in education: investing in talent, by ln’am Al Muftí.
• Improving the quality of school teaching, by lsao Amagi.
• Revitalized education and human communities: a vision of the socializing school in the next century, by Roberto Carneiro.
• Education in contemporary Africa, by Fay Chung.
• Cohesion, solidarity, and exclusion, by Bronislaw Jeremek.
• Suscitar la ocasión, by Aleksandra Kornhauser.
• Education, self-reliance and social reconciliation, by Michael Manley.
• Educating for society, by Karan Singh.
• Education for a multicultural world, by Rodolfo Stavenhagen.
• Opening our minds so that we all live better, by Myong Won Suhr.
• Interactions between education and culture with a view to economic and human development: an Asian point of view, by Zhou Nanzhao.

Faced with the numerous challenges of the future, education is an indispensable instrument for humanity to progress towards the ideals of peace, freedom, and social justice. Upon concluding its work, the Commission therefore wishes to affirm its conviction regarding the essential role of education in the continuous development of the individual and societies, not as a miraculous remedy – the “Open Sesame” to a world that has achieved all these ideals – but as a path, certainly among others but more than others, in the service of a more harmonious, more genuine human development, to push back poverty, exclusion, misunderstandings, oppression, wars, etc. 

The Commission wishes to share this conviction with the general public through its analyses, reflections, and proposals, at a time when education policies are the subject of strong criticism or are relegated, for economic and financial reasons, to the last category of priorities. 

It may not be necessary to emphasize it, but the Commission has thought above all of children and adolescents, of those who tomorrow will take over from adult generations, too inclined to focus on their own problems. Education is also a cry of love for childhood, for the youth that we must integrate into our societies, in their rightful place, in the education system undoubtedly, but also in the family, in the grassroots community, in the nation. This elementary duty must be constantly remembered so that even political, economic, and financial decisions take it more into account. To paraphrase the words of the poet, the child is the future of man. 

At the end of a century characterized by noise and fury as much as by economic and scientific progress – progress that has, moreover, been unevenly distributed – and at the dawn of a new century, the prospect of which inspires as much anxiety as hope, it is imperative that all those who bear responsibility should give thought to the aims and methods of education. The Commission regards educational policies as a permanent process of enriching knowledge and technical skill, but also, and perhaps above all, as a privileged means of structuring the individual and the relationships between individuals, groups and nations. 

In accepting the mandate entrusted to them, the members of the Commission explicitly adopted this perspective and, on the basis of arguments, stressed the central role of UNESCO in accordance with its founding principle, which is based on the hope of a better world, capable of respecting human rights, practicing mutual understanding and making the progress of knowledge an instrument for the advancement of humankind, not for discrimination. 

It was certainly impossible for our Commission to overcome the obstacle of the extraordinary diversity of situations throughout the world in order to arrive at analyses valid for all and conclusions acceptable to all. 

However, the Commission sought to reason within a forward-looking framework dominated by globalization, to select the right questions that face us all, and to outline some valid directions at the national and global levels.

The forward-looking framework

This last quarter-century has been marked by remarkable scientific discoveries and progress, many countries have emerged from underdevelopment, and living standards have continued to rise at very different rates depending on the country. And yet, a sense of disillusionment seems to prevail, contrasting with the hopes born immediately after the last world war.

We can then speak of the disappointments of progress, on the economic and social level. The increase in unemployment and phenomena of exclusion in rich countries are proof of this, and the persistence of development inequalities in the world confirms it(1). Of course, humanity is more aware of the threats to its natural environment, but it has not yet equipped itself with the means to remedy this situation, despite many international meetings, such as the one in Rio, despite serious warnings following natural phenomena or technological accidents. In any case, “unbridled economic growth” can no longer be considered the easiest path to reconciling material progress with equity, respect for the human condition, and the natural capital that we must pass on in good condition to future generations. 

Have we drawn all the conclusions, both regarding the goals, the paths, and the means of sustainable development, and regarding new forms of international cooperation? Certainly not! And this will then be one of the great intellectual and political challenges of the next century. 

This realization should not lead developing countries to neglect the classic engines of growth, and specifically the indispensable entry into the world of science and technology, with all that this implies in terms of cultural adaptation and modernization of mentalities. 

Another disappointment, another disillusionment for those who saw in the end of the Cold War the prospect of a better, more peaceful world. It is not enough to repeat, to console ourselves or find justifications, that History is tragic. Everyone knows or should know that. If the last great war caused 50 million victims, how can we not remember that since 1945 there have been about 150 wars that have caused 20 million deaths, both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. New risks or old risks? It hardly matters, tensions are latent and erupt between nations, between ethnic groups, or in relation to accumulated injustices at the economic and social levels. Measuring these risks and organizing to prevent them is the duty of all leaders, in a context marked by increasing interdependence between peoples and by the globalization of problems. 

But how can we learn to live together in the “global village” if we cannot live in the communities to which we naturally belong: the nation, the region, the city, the town, the neighborhood? The central question of democracy is whether we want and can participate in community life. Wanting to do so, let’s not forget, depends on each person’s sense of responsibility. Now, if democracy has conquered new territories until today dominated by totalitarianism and arbitrariness, it tends to weaken where it has existed institutionally for decades, as if everything had to start over continuously, be renewed and reinvented. 

How could education policies not feel addressed by these three major challenges? How could the Commission not emphasize how these policies can contribute to a better world, to sustainable human development, to mutual understanding between peoples, to a renewal of democracy that is effectively lived?

The tensions that must be overcome

To this end, it is advisable to confront, in order to overcome them better, the main tensions that, without being new, are at the center of the problems of the 21st century.

The tension between the global and the local: gradually becoming a citizen of the world without losing one’s roots and actively participating in the life of the nation and grassroots communities. 

The tension between the universal and the singular: the globalization of culture is happening progressively, but still partially. In fact, it is inevitable, with its promises and its risks, among which not the least is forgetting the unique character of each person, their vocation to choose their destiny and realize their full potential, in the maintained richness of their traditions and their own culture, threatened, if not careful, by the evolutions that are taking place.

The tension between tradition and modernity belongs to the same problem: adapting without denying oneself, building one’s autonomy in dialogue with the freedom and evolution of others, mastering scientific progress. With this spirit, we must face the challenge of new information technologies.

The tension between the long term and the short term, an eternal tension but currently fueled by a predominance of the ephemeral and instantaneous, in a context where the plethora of fleeting information and emotions incessantly leads to a focus on immediate problems. Opinions demand quick answers and solutions, while many of the problems encountered require a patient, concerted, and negotiated strategy for reform. This is precisely the case with ‘educational’ policies.

The tension between indispensable competence and concern for equal opportunities. A classic issue, raised since the beginning of the century for economic and social policies and educational policies; an issue sometimes resolved but never in a lasting way. Today, the Commission runs the risk of stating that the pressure of competition makes many managers forget the mission of giving every human being the means to take advantage of all their opportunities. This observation has led us, in the field covered by this report, to revisit and update the concept of lifelong learning, in order to reconcile stimulating competition, strengthening cooperation, and uniting solidarity.

The tension between the extraordinary development of knowledge and human assimilation capacities. The Commission could not resist the temptation to add new disciplines such as self-knowledge and ways to maintain physical and psychological health, or learning to better understand the natural environment and preserve it. And yet, school curricula are increasingly overloaded. Therefore, it will be necessary to choose, in a clear reform strategy, but on the condition of preserving the essential elements of a basic education that teaches how to live better through knowledge, experimentation, and the formation of a personal culture.

Finally, the tension between the spiritual and the material, which is also an eternal observation. The world, often without feeling or expressing it, thirsts for ideals and values that we will call moral so as not to offend anyone. What a noble task for education to awaken in each person, according to their traditions and convictions and with full respect for pluralism, this elevation of thought and spirit towards the universal and a certain self-transcendence! The survival of humanity – the Commission says this, measuring its words – depends on it.

Thinking and building our common future

Our contemporaries experience a sense of vertigo when faced with the dilemma of globalization, whose manifestations they see and sometimes suffer, and their search for roots, references, and belonging.

Education must confront this problem because it is situated more than ever in the perspective of the painful birth of a global society, at the core of the development of the individual and communities. Education has the mission of enabling everyone without exception to develop all their talents and all their creative capacities, which implies that each person can take responsibility for themselves and realize their personal project.

This goal goes beyond all others. Its achievement, long and difficult, will be an essential contribution to the search for a more livable and more just world. The Commission wishes to emphasize this emphatically at a time when some minds are overcome by doubt regarding the possibilities offered by education.

Of course, there are many other problems to solve. We will talk about them later. But this report is written at a time when humanity hesitates between accompanying an evolution that cannot be controlled or resigning itself, in the face of so much unhappiness caused by war, crime, and underdevelopment. Let us offer it another path.

Everything then invites us to re-evaluate the ethical and cultural aspects of education, and for this purpose to give everyone the means to understand others in their particularity and to understand the world in its chaotic course towards a certain unity. But it is also necessary to begin by understanding oneself in this sort of inner journey marked by knowledge, meditation, and the practice of self-criticism.

This message must guide all reflection on education, along with the expansion and deepening of international cooperation with which these reflections will conclude. In this perspective, everything is ordered, whether it be the demands of science and technology, self-knowledge and knowledge of one’s environment, or the creation of capacities that allow each person to act as a member of a family, as a citizen, or as a producer. This means that the Commission does not underestimate in any way the central role of gray matter and innovation, the transition to a cognitive society, the endogenous processes that allow for the accumulation of knowledge, the addition of new discoveries, and their application in the different fields of human activity, whether in health and the environment or in the production of goods and services. It also recognizes the limits, if not the failures, of efforts to transfer technologies to the most deprived countries, precisely because of the endogenous nature of knowledge accumulation and application mechanisms. Hence the need, among others, for early initiation into science, its forms of application, and the difficult effort to master progress while respecting the human person and their integrity. Here too, ethical concern must be present.

This also means remembering that the Commission is aware of the missions that education must fulfill in the service of economic and social development. Too often, the training system is blamed for unemployment. This observation is only partially fair and, above all, should not obscure the other political, economic, and social demands that must be met to achieve full employment or enable the takeoff of underdeveloped economies. However, the Commission believes, returning to the subject of education, that a more flexible system that allows for diversity of studies, pathways between different fields of teaching, or between professional experience and a return to training constitutes a valid response to the issues raised by the mismatch between the supply and demand for labor. Such a system would also help reduce school failure, which causes a tremendous waste of human resources that everyone must measure.

But these desirable and possible improvements will not dispense with intellectual innovation and the application of a sustainable development model in accordance with the specific characteristics of each country. We must all be convinced that with the current and expected progress of science and technology and the growing importance of the cognitive and immaterial in the production of goods and services, it is advisable to reconsider the place of work and its different statuses in the society of tomorrow. Human imagination, precisely to create this society, must anticipate technological progress if we want to avoid worsening unemployment and social exclusion or inequalities in development.

For all these reasons, it seems to us that the concept of lifelong education, with its advantages of flexibility, diversity, and accessibility in time and space, must be imposed. It is the idea of permanent education that must be simultaneously reconsidered and expanded, because in addition to the necessary adaptations related to the mutations of professional life, it must be a continuous structuring of the human person, of their knowledge and skills, but also of their capacity for judgment and action. It should enable them to become aware of themselves and their environment and invite them to play their social role in work and in the city.

In this regard, the need to move towards “an educational society” has been evoked. It is true that all personal and social life can be the subject of learning and action. The temptation is therefore great to privilege this aspect of things to emphasize the educational potential of modern means of communication, or of professional life, or of cultural and entertainment activities, to the point of forgetting some essential truths because of it. Because, while all these possibilities for learning and self-improvement must be taken advantage of, it is no less true that in order to make good use of this potential, the person must possess all the elements of a quality basic education. Even better, it is desirable that school instills in them more the taste and pleasure of learning, the ability to learn how to learn, and intellectual curiosity. Let us even imagine a society in which everyone would be alternately an educator and a learner.

For this, nothing can replace the formal education system in which each person is initiated into the subjects of knowledge in their various forms. Nothing can substitute the relationship of authority, but also of dialogue, between the teacher and the student. All the great classical thinkers who have studied the problem of education have said and repeated this. It is the teacher who must transmit to the student what humanity has learned about itself and about nature, all that it has created and invented of essential.

Implementing lifelong learning within society

Lifelong learning is presented as one of the keys to accessing the 21st century. This notion goes beyond the traditional distinction between basic education and continuing education, and responds to the challenge of a rapidly changing world. But this statement is not new, since previous reports on education already highlighted the need to return to school to be able to face the novelties that arise in private and professional life. This need persists, it has even intensified, and the only way to satisfy it is for all of us to learn how to learn.

But another obligation also arises which, after the profound change in traditional frameworks of existence, requires us to better understand the other, to better understand the world. Demands for mutual understanding, for peaceful dialogue and, why not, for harmony, that which, precisely, our society lacks the most.

This position leads the Commission to place particular emphasis on one of the four pillars presented and illustrated as the foundations of education. This is learning to live together by better knowing others, their history, their traditions, and their spirituality, and from there, creating a new spirit that drives the realization of common projects or the intelligent and peaceful resolution of inevitable conflicts, thanks precisely to the understanding that interdependence is increasing, and to a shared analysis of future risks and challenges. A utopia, you might think, but a necessary utopia, an essential utopia to break free from the dangerous cycle fueled by cynicism or resignation.

Indeed, the Commission envisions an education that generates and serves as the foundation for this new spirit, which does not mean that it has neglected the other three pillars of education which, in a way, provide the basic elements for learning to live together.

First, learning to know. However, given the rapid changes resulting from scientific advances and new forms of economic and social activity, it is advisable to combine a sufficiently broad general culture with the possibility of studying a small number of subjects in depth. This general culture serves as a passport for lifelong learning, as it provides encouragement and lays the foundation for learning throughout life.

Also, learning to do. It is advisable not to limit oneself to acquiring a trade and, in a broader sense, to acquiring a competence that allows one to face numerous situations, some unpredictable, and that facilitates teamwork, a dimension too often overlooked in current teaching methods. In many cases, this competence and these qualifications become more accessible if students have the opportunity to evaluate themselves and enrich themselves by participating in professional or social activities in parallel with their studies, which justifies the more relevant place that the different possibilities of alternating school and work should occupy.

Finally, and above all, learning to be. This was the dominant theme of the Edgar Faure report published in 1972 under the auspices of UNESCO. Its recommendations remain highly relevant, as the 21st century will demand greater autonomy and judgment from us, along with strengthening personal responsibility in achieving our collective destiny. And also, due to another obligation highlighted by this report, not leaving unexplored any of the talents that, like treasures, are buried deep within each person. Let us cite, without being exhaustive, memory, reasoning, imagination, physical abilities, aesthetic sense, ease of communication with others, natural leadership charisma, etc. All of this confirms the need to better understand oneself.

The Commission has echoed another utopia: the educational society based on the acquisition, updating, and use of knowledge. These are the three functions that should be highlighted in the educational process. As the information society develops and multiplies the possibilities of access to data and facts, education must enable everyone to take advantage of this information, gather it, select it, organize it, manage it, and use it. Consequently, education must adapt at all times to societal changes, without ceasing to transmit acquired knowledge, principles, and the fruits of experience. Finally, what can be done so that, in the face of this ever-increasing and more demanding need, educational policies achieve the goal of teaching that is both high-quality and equitable? The Commission has considered these questions with regard to university studies, teaching methods, and content as necessary conditions for their effectiveness.

Reconsider and unite the different stages of education

By focusing its proposals around the concept of lifelong learning, the Commission did not mean that this qualitative leap would dispense with reflection on the different stages of teaching. On the contrary, it aimed to confirm certain major orientations defined by UNESCO, for example, the vital importance of basic education, and at the same time, to prompt a review of the functions performed by secondary education, or even to respond to the questions inevitably raised by the evolution of higher education and, above all, the phenomenon of massification.

Lifelong education simply allows us to order the different stages, prepare transitions, diversify and value trajectories. In this way, we would escape the terrible dilemma of selecting, and thereby multiplying school failure and the risks of exclusion, or equalizing, but to the detriment of promoting talented individuals. These reflections do not detract from what was so well defined during the Jomtien Conference in 1990 regarding basic education and basic learning needs.

“These needs encompass both the essential tools for learning (such as reading and writing, oral expression, arithmetic, problem-solving) and the basic content of learning (theoretical and practical knowledge, values, and attitudes) necessary for human beings to survive, fully develop their capacities, live and work with dignity, participate fully in development, improve their quality of life, make informed decisions, and continue learning.”

This enumeration may seem impressive, and indeed it is. But this should not lead to an excessive accumulation of programs. The relationship between teacher and student, knowledge of the environment in which children live, good use of modern communication media wherever they exist, all can contribute to the personal and intellectual development of the student. Thus, basic knowledge, reading, writing, and arithmetic will have their full meaning. The combination of traditional teaching with extracurricular approaches must allow the child to access the three dimensions of education, namely the ethical and cultural, the scientific and technological, and the economic and social.

In other words, education is also a social experience, in which the child gets to know themselves, enriches their relationships with others, and acquires the foundations of theoretical and practical knowledge. This experience should begin before compulsory school age in various forms depending on the situation, but families and local communities must be involved. At this point, two observations should be added, which are important in the Commission’s opinion.

Basic education must reach, worldwide, the 900 million illiterate adults, the 130 million unschooled children, and the more than 100 million children who drop out of school prematurely. Technical assistance and co-participation activities within the framework of international cooperation should be directed towards them as a priority.

Basic education is a problem that logically arises in all countries, including industrialized ones. From this level of education, the content must foster the desire to learn, the eagerness and joy of knowing, and therefore, the drive and possibilities for later access to lifelong learning.

We thus arrive at what represents one of the main difficulties of any reform, namely, what policy should be pursued with regard to young people and adolescents who complete primary education, during the entire period between their entry into professional life or university. Would we dare to say that these types of so-called secondary education are, in a sense, the “unpopular” ones in educational reflection? In fact, they are the subject of countless criticisms and generate a good deal of frustration.

Among the disturbing factors, mention can be made of the increasing and ever more diversified training needs, which lead to a rapid growth in the number of students and a clogging of programs. This is the origin of the classic problems of massification, which developing countries have great difficulty in resolving both financially and organizationally. One can also mention the anxiety of graduation or of exits, an anxiety that increases the obsession with accessing higher education, as if it were a matter of all or nothing. Widespread unemployment in many countries only exacerbates this malaise. The Commission highlighted the worrying nature of a trend that leads, in rural and urban areas, in developing and industrialized countries, not only to unemployment but also to the underemployment of human resources.

In the Commission’s opinion, this difficulty can only be overcome through a very broad diversification of educational pathways. This approach aligns with one of the Commission’s main concerns: valuing all types of talents to reduce school failure and prevent a large number of adolescents from feeling excluded and without a future.

Among the different pathways offered, there should be the traditional ones, more oriented towards abstraction and conceptualization, but also those that, enriched by an alternation between school and professional or social life, bring out other types of talents and interests. In any case, bridges should be built between these pathways so that the orientation errors that are too often made can be corrected.

Furthermore, in the Commission’s opinion, the prospect of being able to return to an educational or training cycle would change the general climate by assuring adolescents that their fate is not sealed between the ages of 14 and 20. Higher education should also be viewed from this perspective.

The first thing to note is that, in many countries, alongside the university, there are other types of higher education institutions. Some are dedicated to selecting the best, others have been created to provide very specific and high-quality vocational training, lasting two to four years. Undoubtedly, this diversification responds to the needs of society and the economy, expressed at national and regional levels.

Regarding the massification observed in the wealthiest countries, a politically and socially acceptable solution cannot be found in increasingly severe selection. One of the main flaws of this approach is that many young men and women are excluded from education before obtaining a recognized qualification and, therefore, are in a desperate situation, as they have neither the advantage of a qualification nor the compensation of training adapted to the needs of the labor market.

Therefore, a management of human resource development is needed, even if it has a limited scope, through a reform of secondary education that adopts the broad lines proposed by the Commission. 

The university could contribute to this reform by diversifying its offerings:

• as a place of science and a source of knowledge leading to theoretical or applied research, or teacher training; 
• as a means of acquiring professional qualifications in line with university studies and content constantly adapted to the needs of the economy, combining theoretical and practical knowledge at a high level; 
• as a privileged platform for lifelong education, by opening its doors to adults who wish to resume their studies, adapt and enrich their knowledge, or satisfy their desire to learn in all areas of cultural life; 
• as a privileged interlocutor in international cooperation that allows for the exchange of professors and students, and facilitates the dissemination of the best teaching through international chairs.

In this way, the university would overcome the opposition it wrongly faces between the logic of public administration and that of the labor market. Furthermore, it would rediscover the meaning of its intellectual and social mission in society, being in a way one of the guarantor institutions of universal values and cultural heritage. The Commission believes that these are pertinent reasons to advocate for greater university autonomy.

In formulating these proposals, the Commission emphasizes that this issue takes on special significance in poorer nations, where universities must play a decisive role. To examine the difficulties they currently face, learning from their own past, universities in developing countries have the obligation to conduct research that can contribute to solving their most serious problems. Furthermore, it is their responsibility to train the future elites and graduates at both the professional and technical levels that their countries need to escape the cycles of poverty and underdevelopment in which they are currently trapped. Above all, it is important to design new development models tailored to each specific case, for regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, as has already been done for East Asian countries.

Successfully implementing reform strategies

Without underestimating the management of short-term obligations or neglecting the need to adapt to existing systems, the Commission wishes to emphasize the importance of adopting a longer-term approach to successfully carry out the indispensable reforms. For this very reason, it warns that too many successive reforms nullify the intended objective, as they do not give the system the necessary time to absorb the new spirit and ensure that all reform agents are in a position to participate in it. Furthermore, as previous failures demonstrate, many reformers adopt an approach that is too radical or excessively theoretical and do not capitalize on the useful lessons learned from experience or reject the positive heritage inherited from the past. This disturbs teachers, parents, and students and, consequently, conditions their willingness to accept and, subsequently, implement the reform.

Three main actors contribute to the success of educational reforms: firstly, the local community and, above all, parents, school principals, and teachers; secondly, public authorities; and finally, the international community. In the past, the lack of firm commitment from any of the aforementioned stakeholders led to numerous exclusions. It is also evident that attempts to impose educational reforms from above or from outside have been a complete failure. The countries where this process, to a greater or lesser extent, has been successful are those that achieved enthusiastic participation from local communities, parents, and teachers, supported by ongoing dialogue and various forms of external assistance, both financial and technical/professional. The primacy of the local community is clear in any strategy for the successful implementation of a reform.

The participation of the local community in assessing needs, through dialogue with public authorities and interested groups within society, is a fundamental first step in broadening access to education and improving it. Continuing this dialogue through the media, in community debates, and through parent education and training, as well as teacher training in employment, often contributes to greater awareness and increases discernment and the development of endogenous capacities at the community level. When communities take on more responsibility for their own development, they learn to value the role of education, conceived both as a means to achieve certain social objectives and as a desirable improvement in quality of life.

In this regard, the Commission highlights the desirability of intelligent decentralization, which allows for increased responsibility and innovation capacity at each educational establishment. In any case, no reform will yield positive results without the active participation of the teaching staff. For this reason, the Commission recommends that priority attention be paid to the social, cultural, and material situation of educators.

Teachers are asked a lot, even too much, when they are expected to fill the gaps of other institutions also responsible for the education and training of young people. Much is asked of them, while the outside world increasingly enters the school, particularly through new information and communication media. Thus, the teacher finds themselves facing young people less supported by families or religious movements, but more informed. Consequently, they must take this new context into account to be heard and understood by young people, to awaken in them the desire to learn, and to show them that information is not knowledge, which requires effort, attention, rigor, and will.

Rightly or wrongly, the teacher has the impression of being alone, not only because they perform an individual activity, but due to the expectations that teaching arouses and the criticisms, often unfair, to which they are subjected. Above all, they wish for their dignity to be respected. Furthermore, most teachers belong to often powerful trade union organizations in which there exists – why deny it – a corporate spirit of defending their interests. However, it is necessary to intensify and give a new perspective to the dialogue between society and teachers, as well as between public authorities and their trade union organizations.

We must recognize that it is not easy to renew the nature of such dialogue, but it is essential to dispel the teacher’s feeling of isolation and frustration, achieve acceptance of current challenges, and ensure that everyone contributes to the success of the indispensable reforms.

In this context, it would be advisable to add some recommendations regarding content, teacher training, their full access to continuing education, the revaluation of the status of teachers responsible for basic education, and a more active presence of teachers in underserved and marginalized social media, where they could contribute to a better integration of adolescents and young people into society.

This is also an argument for equipping the education system not only with adequately trained teachers and professors, but also with the necessary elements to provide quality teaching: books, modern media, the school’s cultural and economic environment, etc.

Aware of the realities of current education, the Commission placed particular emphasis on the need for qualitative and quantitative teaching resources, both traditional (such as books) and new (such as information technologies), which should be used with discernment and by promoting active student participation. For their part, teachers should work in teams, especially at the secondary education level, mainly to contribute to the indispensable flexibility of study programs. This will prevent many failures, highlight some natural qualities of students, and consequently facilitate better guidance for each individual’s studies and career, according to the principle of lifelong education.

Viewed from this perspective, the improvement of the education system obliges the politician to fully assume their responsibility. Indeed, they can no longer behave as if the market were capable of correcting existing defects on its own or as if some kind of self-regulation were sufficient to do so.

The Commission has placed all the more emphasis on the permanence of values, the demands of the future, and the duties of teachers and society, because it believes in the importance of the political leader. Only they, taking all elements into consideration, can initiate the debates of general interest that are vital for education. This matter concerns us all, as our future is at stake, since education can indeed contribute to improving the lot of each and every one of us.

And this inevitably leads us to highlight the role of public authorities, responsible for clearly setting out the options and, after broad consultation with all stakeholders, defining a public policy that, whatever the system’s structures (public, private, or mixed), outlines the directions, lays the foundations and axes of the system, and establishes its regulation by introducing the necessary adaptations.

Of course, all decisions adopted in that context have financial repercussions. The Commission does not underestimate this factor. But it considers, without delving into the complex diversity of systems, that education is a collective good that everyone should be able to access. Once this principle is accepted, it is possible to combine public and private funds, according to various formulas that take into account the traditions of each country, its level of development, lifestyles, and income distribution.

In any case, the principle of equal opportunities must prevail in all decisions adopted. 

During the debates, I mentioned a more radical solution. Given that lifelong education will gradually gain ground, the possibility could be studied of attributing to each young person about to begin their schooling a “time credit,” which would entitle them to a certain number of years of education. Their credit would be recorded in an account at an institution that would, in some way, manage a capital of chosen time, for each individual, with the corresponding financial resources. Each person could use this capital, according to their school experience and their own choice. They could keep a part of it to be able, once their school life is over and they are adults, to take advantage of lifelong learning opportunities. They could also increase their capital through financial contributions – a kind of pension saving dedicated to education – which would be credited to their “chosen time bank” account. After a detailed debate, the Commission supported this idea, not without realizing its potential drawbacks, which could even be detrimental to equal opportunities. For that reason, in the current situation, a time credit for education could be granted experimentally upon completion of compulsory schooling, allowing the adolescent to choose the path they desire without jeopardizing their future.

But all in all, if after the fundamental stage that the Jomtien Conference on Education for All constituted, it were necessary to define an urgency, we should undoubtedly focus on secondary education. Indeed, between graduation from primary school and entry into active life or higher education, the destiny of millions of young people, boys and girls, is decided. And this is the weak point of our educational systems, due to excessive elitism, because they fail to channel mass phenomena, or because they suffer from inertia and are resistant to any adaptation. Precisely when young people face the problems of adolescence, when in a sense they consider themselves mature, but in reality suffer from a lack of maturity and the future arouses more anxiety than indifference in them, it is important to offer them places for learning and discovery, to give them the necessary tools to think and prepare their future, to diversify pathways according to their abilities, but also to ensure that future prospects do not close and that it is always possible to repair mistakes or correct the path.

Extend international cooperation in the global village

In the political and economic spheres, the Commission noted that, increasingly frequently, measures are being adopted at the international level to try to find satisfactory solutions to problems that have a global dimension, if only because of the ever-increasing interdependence, so often highlighted. The Commission also regretted the fact that very few results have been obtained so far and considered it necessary to reform international institutions in order to increase the effectiveness of their interventions.

This analysis is valid, mutatis mutandis, for the spheres encompassing the social dimension and education. Hence the importance attached to the Copenhagen Summit Meeting of March 1995, devoted to social issues. Education occupies a privileged place among the orientations adopted. In this context, the Commission made the following recommendations:

• develop an extremely dynamic policy in favor of the education of girls and women, in accordance with the Beijing Conference (September 1995);
• use a minimum percentage of development aid (a quarter of the total) to finance education; this shift in favor of education should also occur at the level of international financial institutions and, first and foremost, at the World Bank, which already plays an important role; 
• develop “debt-for-education swaps” mechanisms in order to compensate for the negative effects of adjustment policies and the reduction of internal and external deficits on public education spending;  
• – disseminate new technologies called information society technologies in favor of all countries, in order to avoid a further widening of the gap between rich and poor countries; 
• mobilize the enormous potential offered by non-governmental organizations and, consequently, grassroots initiatives, which could provide valuable support to international cooperation activities.

These proposals should be developed within a partnership framework, not one of assistance. Experience, after so many failures and waste, leads us to this conclusion. Globalization imposes it on us. We can cite some encouraging examples, such as the success of cooperation and exchange activities carried out at the regional level. This is particularly the case with the European Union. 

The principle of partnership is also justified by the fact that it can lead to positive interaction for everyone. Indeed, if industrialized countries can help developing nations by sharing their positive experiences, technologies, and financial and material resources with them, they can in turn learn from those countries about ways of transmitting cultural heritage, socialization pathways for children, and, more essentially, different cultural forms and idiosyncrasies.

The Commission wishes for UNESCO Member States to provide the Organization with the necessary resources to foster the spirit and activities of partnership proposed within the framework of the guidelines submitted to the UNESCO General Conference. The Organization will do so by disseminating successful innovations and contributing to the establishment of networks based on NGO initiatives, with a view to developing quality education (UNESCO Chairs) or fostering partnerships in research.

For our part, we also assign a fundamental importance to UNESCO in the proper development of new information technologies for quality education. Fundamentally, UNESCO will contribute to peace and mutual understanding among human beings by valuing education as a spirit of concord, a sign of a will to cohabit, as militants of our planetary village, which we must conceive and organize for the benefit of future generations. In this sense, the Organization will contribute to a culture of peace.

To title its report, the Commission drew on one of Jean de La Fontaine’s fables: “The Farmer and His Children.”

Save (said the farmer) the inheritance, left by our parents; you will see that it hides a treasure.

Education is all that Humanity has learned about itself. Paraphrasing the poet, who praised the virtue of work, we could say:

 But the father was wise When he showed them, before dying, That education is a treasure.

Jacques Delors
President of the Commission

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Chapter 1

Clues and recommendations

• Planetary interdependence and globalization are major phenomena of our time, already at play and set to shape the 21st century. Today, they already necessitate a global reflection—extending far beyond the realms of education and culture—on the functions and structures of international organizations. 
• The main danger is the opening of a chasm between a minority capable of navigating this new world in formation and a majority that feels shaken by events and powerless to influence the collective destiny, with the risks of democratic regression and multiple rebellions. 
• The guiding utopia that should guide our steps consists of achieving a greater mutual understanding, a greater sense of responsibility, and greater solidarity in the world, based on the acceptance of our spiritual and cultural differences. By allowing everyone access to knowledge, education has a very specific role to play in achieving this universal task. It helps to understand the world and to understand others, in order to better understand oneself.

Chapter 2

Clues and recommendations

• Education policy must be sufficiently diversified and conceived so that it does not constitute an additional factor of exclusion. 
• The socialization of each individual and personal development should not be two antagonistic factors. Therefore, we must strive for a system that combines the virtues of integration and respect for individual rights. 
• Education alone cannot solve the problems posed by the breakdown (where it occurs) of the social bond. However, it can be expected to contribute to developing the will to live together, a basic factor of social cohesion and national identity. 
• The school can only successfully carry out this task if, for its part, it contributes to the promotion and integration of minority groups, mobilizing the interested parties themselves, whose personality it must respect. 
• Democracy seems to progress according to forms and stages adapted to the situation of each country. But its vitality is constantly threatened. It is in school that education for conscious and active citizenship must begin. 
• In a way, democratic citizenship is a corollary of civic virtue. But it can be fostered or stimulated through instruction and practices adapted to the communication and information society. It is about providing guiding keys to strengthen the ability to understand and judge. 
• Education has the task of instilling in both children and adults the cultural foundations that will enable them to decipher, as far as possible, the meaning of the mutations that are taking place. To this end, it is necessary to select from the mass of information in order to interpret it better and place events in a global history. 
• Education systems must respond to the multiple challenges posed by the information society, always based on the continuous enrichment of knowledge and the exercise of citizenship adapted to the demands of our time.

Chapter 3

Clues and recommendations

• Continue the reflection on the idea of a new development model that is more respectful of nature and individual rhythms. 
• A forward-looking consideration of the place of work in the society of tomorrow, taking into account the repercussions of technical progress and the changes it brings about in private and collective ways of life. 
• A more exhaustive estimate of human development that takes into account all its dimensions, in line with the orientation of the UNDP’s work. 
• The establishment of new relationships between education policy and development policy with a view to strengthening the theoretical and technical knowledge base in the countries concerned: encouragement of initiative, teamwork, realistic synergies based on local resources, self-employment, and entrepreneurship.
• The indispensable enrichment and generalization of basic education (importance of the Jomtien Declaration).

Chapter 4

Clues and recommendations

• Lifelong learning is based on four pillars: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.
• Learning to know, by combining a sufficiently broad general culture with the possibility of deepening one’s knowledge in a small number of subjects. This also means learning to learn in order to take advantage of the opportunities offered by lifelong education. 
• Learning to do in order to acquire not only a vocational qualification but, more generally, the competence that enables an individual to deal with a wide variety of situations and to work in teams. It also means learning to do within the framework of the various social or work experiences offered to young people and adolescents, either spontaneously due to the social or national context, or formally thanks to the development of sandwich courses. 
• Learning to live together by developing an understanding of others and an awareness of the interdependence of individuals. 
• Carry out common projects and prepare to deal with conflicts by respecting the values of pluralism, mutual understanding, and peace.
• Learning to be, so that one’s personality may be more completely, develops for which education must in all cases permit each individual’s memory, reasoning, aesthetic sense, physical capacities, communication aptitudes and sense of responsibility to find their fullest development. In short, the education of the total personality of every individual to the end that the independent, critical judgment of each person will be cultivated with all their individual capabilities.
• While formal education systems tend to prioritize the acquisition of knowledge at the expense of other forms of learning, it is important to conceive of education as a whole. Educational reforms should seek inspiration and guidance in this conception, both in the development of curricula and in the definition of new pedagogical policies.

Chapter 5

Clues and recommendations

• The concept of lifelong learning is the key to entering the 21st century. This concept goes beyond the traditional distinction between basic education and continuing education and coincides with another notion often formulated: that of an educational society, in which everything can be an occasion for learning and developing the individual’s capacities. 
• With this new face, lifelong education is conceived as something that goes far beyond what is already practiced today, particularly in developed countries, namely, leveling, upgrading, and professional conversion and promotion activities for adults. It is now about offering everyone the possibility of receiving education, and for multiple purposes, whether it is to provide a second or third educational opportunity or to satisfy the thirst for knowledge, beauty, or self-improvement, or to perfect and expand the types of training strictly linked to the demands of professional life, including practical training.
• In summary, “lifelong education” must take advantage of all the possibilities offered by society.

Chapter 6

Clues and recommendations

• A valid requirement for all countries, but with different modalities and contents: the strengthening of basic education, hence the emphasis on primary education and its classic basic learning, i.e., reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also on knowing how to express oneself in one’s own language for dialogue and understanding. 
• The need—which will be even more acute tomorrow—to open up to science and its world, which is the key to entering the 21st century with its profound scientific and technological changes. 
• Adapt basic education to particular contexts and to the most needy countries and populations. Start from everyday life data, which offers possibilities both for understanding natural phenomena and for acquiring different forms of sociability. 
• Recall the imperatives of literacy and basic education for adults. 
• In all cases, prioritize the relationship between teacher and student, given that the most advanced techniques can only support this relationship (transmission, dialogue, and confrontation) between teacher and learner. 
• Secondary education must be rethought within this general perspective of lifelong learning. The essential principle lies in organizing the diversity of pathways without ever canceling the possibility of returning to the education system later on.
• Debates on selectivity and guidance would be greatly clarified if this principle were fully applied. Everyone would understand in that case that, whatever decisions were made and whatever pathways were followed in adolescence, no door would be closed to them in the future, including the door to school itself. This is how equal opportunities would gain their full meaning.
• The university must constitute the core of the system, even though, as happens in numerous countries, other higher education institutions exist outside of it.
• The university would be attributed four essential functions: 1. Preparation for research and teaching. 2. Offering highly specialized types of training adapted to the needs of economic and social life. 3. Openness to all to respond to the multiple aspects of what we call lifelong learning in the broad sense of the term. 4. International cooperation. 
• The university must also be able to speak out with complete independence and full responsibility on ethical and social issues – as a kind of intellectual power that society needs to help it reflect, understand, and act. 
• The diversity of secondary education and the possibilities offered by the university must provide a valid response to the challenges of massification, eliminating the obsession with the “royal and only path.” Thanks to them, combined with the generalization of alternation, it will also be possible to effectively combat school failure.
• The development of lifelong education implies that new forms of certification be studied in which all acquired competencies are taken into account.

Chapter 7

Clues and recommendations

• Although the psychological and material situation of teachers is very diverse, it is essential to revalue their status if we want ‘lifelong learning’ to fulfill the key mission assigned to it by the Commission for the progress of our societies and the strengthening of mutual understanding among peoples. Society must recognize the teacher as such and provide them with the necessary authority and adequate means of work. 
• But lifelong learning leads directly to the notion of an educational society, that is, a society in which multiple learning opportunities are offered, both in school and in economic, social, and cultural life. Hence the need to multiply forms of consultation and association with families, economic circles, the world of associations, cultural life agents, etc. 
• Therefore, this imperative to update knowledge and skills also concerns teachers. Their professional lives must be organized in such a way that they are able, and even obliged, to perfect their art and take advantage of the experiences gained in the different spheres of economic, social, and cultural life. These opportunities are usually foreseen in the multiple forms of educational leave or sabbatical leave. These formulas should be expanded through appropriate adaptations for all teaching staff. 
• Although the teaching profession is fundamentally a solitary activity in that each educator must face their own professional responsibilities and duties, teamwork is essential, particularly in secondary education, in order to improve the quality of education and better adapt to the particular characteristics of classes or student groups.
• The report emphasizes the importance of teacher exchange and partnerships between institutions in different countries, which bring indispensable added value to the quality of education and, at the same time, to opening minds to other cultures, other civilizations, and other experiences. This is confirmed by the initiatives currently underway. 
• All guidelines should be subject to dialogue, even contracts, with teacher organizations, striving to overcome the purely corporate nature of such forms of consultation. Indeed, beyond their objectives of defending the moral and material interests of their members, trade unions have accumulated a wealth of experience that they are willing to make available to policymakers.

Chapter 8

Clues and recommendations

• Educational options are societal options as such and require broad public debate in all countries, based on an accurate evaluation of educational systems. The Commission calls on political authorities to foster this debate in order to reach a democratic consensus, which represents the best way to successfully implement educational reform strategies. 
•  The Commission advocates the implementation of measures that allow the involvement of various social agents in educational decision-making. In its opinion, administrative decentralization and the autonomy of educational institutions can, in most cases, lead to the development and widespread adoption of innovation. 
• In this regard, the Commission seeks to reaffirm the role of politicians: it is their duty to clearly present the options and to achieve comprehensive regulation, even if it requires necessary adaptations. Indeed, education is a collective good that cannot be regulated by the mere functioning of the market. 
• In any case, the Commission does not underestimate the importance of financial limitations and advocates for the establishment of public-private partnerships. For developing countries, public funding for basic education remains a priority, but the decisions made should not undermine the overall coherence of the system or lead to the sacrifice of other levels of education. 
• On the other hand, it is essential to review funding structures based on the principle that education should unfold throughout an individual’s life. In this regard, the Commission believes that the proposal for a “time credit” for education, briefly outlined in this report, must be thoroughly debated and studied. 
• The development of new information and communication technologies should prompt general reflection on access to knowledge in the world of tomorrow. The Commission recommends: Diversifying and improving distance learning through the use of new technologies. 
• Greater use of these technologies within the framework of adult education, especially for the continuing professional development of teaching staff. 
• The strengthening of the infrastructures and capacities of each country in terms of development in this sphere, as well as the dissemination of technologies throughout society, are in any case prerequisites for their use within formal education systems. 
• The implementation of new technology dissemination programs with the auspices of UNESCO.

Chapter 9

Clues and recommendations

• The need for international cooperation—which must be radically rethought—is also paramount in the sphere of education. It must be the work not only of those responsible for educational policies and teachers, but also of all agents of collective life. 
• At the level of international cooperation, promote a decidedly proactive policy in favor of the education of girls and women, according to the ideas of the Beijing Conference (1995). 
• Modify the political call for assistance with a partnership perspective, favoring in particular cooperation and exchanges within the framework of regional groupings. 
• Allocate a quarter of development aid to education financing. 
• Encourage debt conversion to offset the negative effects that adjustment policies and the reduction of internal and external deficits have on education spending. 
• Help strengthen national education systems by fostering alliances and cooperation between ministries at the regional level and between countries facing similar challenges. 
• Help countries enhance the international dimension of the education provided (curriculum, use of information technologies, international cooperation). 
• Promote the establishment of new partnerships between international institutions involved in education, for example, by launching an international project aimed at disseminating and implementing the concept of lifelong learning, following the model of the inter-institutional initiative that resulted in the Jomtien Conference. 
• To stimulate, particularly through the development of appropriate indicators, the collection on an international scale of data relating to national investments in education: total amount of private funds, industrial sector investments, non-formal education expenditures, etc. 
• To establish a set of indicators that allow for the description of the most serious dysfunctions in educational systems, relating various quantitative and qualitative data, such as: level of education expenditures, dropout rates, access inequalities, low effectiveness of different parts of the system, insufficient teaching quality, teacher situation, etc. 
• With a forward-looking perspective, to create a UNESCO observatory of new information technologies, their evolution, and their foreseeable repercussions not only on educational systems but also on modern societies. 
• Stimulate intellectual cooperation in the field of education through UNESCO: UNESCO Chairs, Associated Schools, equitable sharing of knowledge among countries, dissemination of information technologies, exchange of students, teachers, and researchers. 
• Strengthen UNESCO’s normative action in support of Member States, for example, regarding the harmonization of national legislation with international instruments.

Annex

The commission’s work

In November 1991, the General Conference invited the Director-General to convene ‘an international commission to reflect on education and learning in the 21st century.’ Mr. Federico Mayor asked Mr. Jacques Delors to chair this commission, along with a group of fourteen other eminent personalities from around the world, drawn from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds.

The International Commission on Education for the 21st Century was officially established in early 1993. The Commission, funded by UNESCO and operating with the assistance of a secretariat provided by the Organization, was able to draw on UNESCO’s valuable resources and international expertise and access an impressive amount of data, but it enjoyed complete independence in carrying out its work and preparing its recommendations.

UNESCO had already produced international studies on various occasions, examining the problems and priorities of education worldwide. In 1968, in the work The World Educational Crisis: A Systems Analysis, Philip H. Coombs, then director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), used the Institute’s work to examine the challenges facing education and recommend far-reaching innovations.

In 1971, following the student movements that had shaken numerous countries in the preceding three years, Mr. René Maheu (then Director-General of UNESCO) asked the former French Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Mr. Edgar Faure, to chair a seven-person working group tasked with defining “the new aims that the rapid transformation of knowledge and societies, the demands of development, the aspirations of the individual, and the imperatives of international understanding and peace assign to education” and with presenting “suggestions regarding the conceptual, human, and financial means to be mobilized to achieve the set objectives.” The Faure Commission’s report, published in 1972 under the title Learning to Be, had the great merit of establishing the concept of lifelong learning at a time when traditional education systems were being criticized.

The first problem – and perhaps the most important – that the Commission chaired by Jacques Delors faced was the extraordinary diversity of educational situations, conceptions, and structures. Another problem, directly related to this one, was the enormous amount of available information, with the evident impossibility for the Commission to assimilate anything more than a small part in carrying out its work. The Commission therefore had to be selective and choose what was essential for the future, taking into account, on the one hand, geopolitical, economic, social, and cultural trends, and, on the other hand, the influence that education policies could have.

Six research orientations were chosen, which allowed the Commission to approach its task from the perspective of the objectives, both individual and social, 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 orientations were complemented by three cross-cutting themes more directly related to the functioning of education systems: communication technologies; teachers and teaching; and funding and management.

The Commission’s method was to conduct the broadest possible consultation process within the time available. Thus, it held eight plenary meetings and as many working group meetings to examine both the major selected themes and the specific problems and interests of a region or a group of countries. Representatives from a wide range of professions and organizations directly and indirectly related to formal and non-formal education participated in the working meetings: teachers, researchers, students, officials and collaborators from governmental and non-governmental organizations at the national and international level. Thanks to the papers presented by eminent personalities, the Commission was able to discuss in depth a wide diversity of topics related to education to varying degrees. Various personalities were consulted, directly or in writing. A questionnaire was sent to all National Commissions for UNESCO, inviting them to submit unpublished documents or materials: the reaction was extremely positive, and the responses were thoroughly examined. Non-governmental organizations were also consulted and, in some cases, invited to participate in meetings. During the two and a half years, various members of the Commission, including its chairman, also attended a series of governmental and non-governmental meetings at which the Commission’s work was discussed and opinions were exchanged. The Commission received numerous written papers, some commissioned and others not. The Commission’s Secretariat analyzed a voluminous documentation and provided the Commission members with summaries on various topics. The Commission proposes that UNESCO publish, in addition to its report, the working papers that have come to light during the preparation process.

Members

• Jacques Delors (France), president, former Minister of Economy and Finance, former President of the European Commission (1985-1995).
• ln’am Al Mufti (Jordan), specialist in the social condition of women, advisor to Her Majesty Queen Noor al-Hussein, former Minister of Social Development.
• Isao Amagi (Japan), an education specialist, special advisor to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and president of the Japan Educational Exchanges and Services-BABA Foundation.
• Roberto Carneiro (Portugal), president of TVI (Televisáo Independente), former Minister of Education and former Minister of State.
• Fay Chung (Zimbabwe), former Minister of State for National Affairs, Employment Creation and Cooperatives, Member of Parliament, former Minister of Education; director of the “Education Cluster” (UNICEF, New York).
• Bronislaw Gerernek (Poland), historian, member of the Polish Sejm, former professor at the Collège de France.
• William Gorham (United States), public policy specialist, president of the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. since 1968.
• Aleksandra Kornhauser (Slovenia), director of the International Centre for Chemical Studies in Ljubljana, specialist in relations between industrial development and environmental protection.
• Michael Manley (Jamaica), trade unionist, academic and writer, prime minister from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992. Marisela Padrón Quero (Venezuela), sociologist, former director of research at the Rómulo Betancourt Foundation, former minister of the Family; director of the Division for Latin America and the Caribbean (I’NUAP, New York). 
• Marie-Angélique Savané (Senegal), sociologist, member of the “Global Governance Commission”, director of the Division for Africa (I’NUAP, New York). 
• Karan Singh (India), diplomat and several times minister, particularly of Education and Health, author of several works on environmental issues, philosophy and political science, president of the Temple of Understanding, an important international interfaith organization. 
• Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Mexico), researcher in political and social sciences, professor at the Center for Sociological Studies of El Colegio de México.
• Myong Won Suhr (Republic of Korea), former Minister of Education, president of the Presidential Commission for Educational Reform (1985-1987).
• Zhou Nanzhao (China), education specialist, vice president and professor at the National Institute of Chinese Pedagogical Studies.

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Alexandra Draxler, secretary of the Commission.

A secretariat will be responsible for monitoring the Commission’s work. Its mission will be to publish the background documentation for its report, as well as studies aimed at thoroughly analyzing one aspect or another of its deliberations or recommendations. It will also assist governmental bodies upon request in organizing meetings to discuss the Commission’s conclusions. Finally, it will participate in activities aimed at implementing some of the Commission’s recommendations. 

The address is as follows:

UNESCO
Education Sector
Unit of Education for the 21st Century
7, place de Fontenoy 75352 PARIS 07 SP (France)
Telephone: (33 1) 45 68 11 23
Fax: (33 1) 43 06 52 55
Internet: EDOBSERV @ UNESCO.ORG

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Back cover

Education plays an essential role in the development of individuals and societies. It is not a miracle cure or a magic formula that will open the doors to a world where all ideals will be realized, but it is one of the main means available to foster a deeper and more harmonious form of human development and thus reduce poverty, exclusion, ignorance, oppression, and war. The next century, dominated by globalization, will bring with it lasting tensions that will have to be overcome: tensions between the global and the local, the universal and the individual, tradition and modernity, long-term and short-term considerations, competition and equal opportunities, the unlimited expansion of knowledge and the limited assimilation capacities of human beings, the spiritual and the material. However different cultures and social organization systems may be, we are everywhere called upon to reinvent the democratic ideal of creating, or maintaining, social cohesion.

In this context, lifelong education will be one of the keys to responding to the challenges of the 21st century. The International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, chaired by Mr. Jacques Delors, former President of the European Commission, proposes in this report that, based on the four pillars of education – learning to be, learning to know, learning to do, and learning to live together – all societies strive to move forward on the path that leads to a necessary Utopia in which none of the talents, which lie hidden like a treasure deep within each person, remain unexploited.

Thus, an attempt has been made to propose a new approach to the stages and transitions of education, so that the paths of the different educational systems diversify and the value of each of them increases. While universal basic education is an absolute priority, secondary education also plays a decisive role in the individual learning paths of young people and in the development of societies. As for higher education institutions, they will have to diversify to take into account their different functions and obligations, whether as centers of knowledge or as places where vocational training is provided, as crossroads in lifelong learning, and as partners in international cooperation.

The report also emphasizes the key role of teachers and the need to improve their training, social status, and working conditions. In a world where technology is an increasingly determining factor, special importance must also be given to ways of both putting technology at the service of education and preparing people to know how to use it in their lives and work. Successfully implementing reform strategies, through broad dialogue and by calling for increasing responsibility and participation from all stakeholders at all levels, will be a decisive element in the renewal of education.

The report presented to UNESCO by this Independent Commission is the result of a global consultation and analysis process that has taken place over a three-year period. It concludes with an urgent call for more resources to be allocated to education, both nationally and internationally, and for international cooperation in education to be revitalized under the leadership of UNESCO.

Published in 1996 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France

UNESCO, 1996
ED – 96/WS/9(5)