January 1997 — Features
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UNESCO's Mission in the Promotion of International Cooperation
These discussions, as well as documents adopted by the Congress, emphasized the internationally important position UNESCO assumes in promoting ICTs in education. It plays the catalyst's role in fostering cooperation with the producers of hardware and software, including international firms.
It is important that educators' and trainers' voices are heard by these companies. There needs to be an international channel through which these voices can be routed. UNESCO might be considered the right "honest broker" to establish this dialogue.
One of the major concerns voiced was that unless minority groups and non-English-speaking countries consciously start providing information on the Internet, the western world and the English language will continue to dominate the system. The UNESCO Congress made it clear that, while the Internet enables countries of the North to share educational materials and research with the Third World and permits developing countries to make their own materials available online, it also reinforces a likelihood of "cultural imperialism."
Reaching the Unreached
"New information technologies are transforming the perspectives for teaching and learning in all societies," said Colin Power, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Education, in his opening address. "They have the potential to enable us to reach the unreached by eliminating frontiers and barriers to knowledge created by poverty, distance, family circumstances, physical disability and the formal education system itself."
The Declaration and Recommendations adopted by the Congress contain specific provisions stressing the commitment of UNESCO, and other agencies of the United Nations System, to join efforts and extend their support to the introduction and application of ICTs in education, science and culture, notably to the benefit of developing countries. The other agencies include the United Nations Development Programme, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank.
Such recommendations in the field of international cooperation refer, for example, to UNESCO's current activities:
- An observatory is being set up by UNESCO to research new information technologies' foreseeable impact not only on education but also on modern societies, a recommendation drawn from the 1996 report, Learning: The Treasure Within.[1]
- The creation of an international network for teacher tele-training is another effort.
- Establishment in Moscow of a UNESCO Institute for Educational Policy and New Information Technologies is still another.
In conjunction with the Congress, an international trade fair was organized in which ministries, educational institutions, research centres as well as private firms participated. These included IBM, Silicon Graphics, Apple Computer, CompuLink and INFORMIX.
Questions linked to the impact of ICTs on the teacher's role, on pre- and inservice teacher training, and staff development issues in general, were discussed at length at the Moscow Congress' follow-up Round Table "The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Teaching and Teachers," organized in the framework of the 45th session of the International Conference on Education devoted to "Strengthening the Role of Teachers in a Changing World." Such issues lie at the core of the UNESCO programme.
