Learning: The Treasure Within.

(Delor’s Report-1996)

Dr. Mohammad Sayid Bhat

Assistant Professor,
Department of Education,
Central University of Kashmir.
UNESCO Publication
United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• Education Sector, Unit for Education for the
Twenty-first Century, 7, place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP, France.
• e-mail: [email protected]
UNESCO’s Vision of Learning
• UNESCO’s long promoted vision of learning:
• Principles of respect for life, human
dignity, and cultural diversity, social
justice and international solidarity.
15 Members of the Commission
• Jacques Delors (France): Chairman
Chairman of the Commission; former President of the European Commission (1985-95);
former French Minister of Economy and Finance.
• In’am Al Mufti (Jordan): Member
Specialised on the status of women; Adviser to Queen Noor of Jordan on Planning and
Development - Noor Al Hussein Foundation; former Minister of Social Development.
• Isao Amagi (Japan): Member
Educator; Special Adviser to the Minister of Education, Science and Culture, Japan;
Chairman of the Japan Educational Exchange-BABA Foundation.
• Roberto Carneiro (Portugal): Member
President, TVI (Televisao Independente); former Minister of Education; Minister of
State, Portugal.
Contd...
• Fay Chung (Zimbabwe): Member
Former Minister of State for National Affairs, Employment Creation and Cooperatives;
former Minister of Education, Zimbabwe; now at UNICEF, New York.
• Bronislaw Geremek (Poland): Member
Historian; Member of Parliament; former Professor at the College de France.
• William Gorham (USA): member
Specialist in public policy; President of the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., since
1968.
• Aleksandra Kornhauser (Slovenia): Member
Director, International Centre for Chemical Studies, Ljubljana; specialist on the interface
between industrial development and environmental protection.
• Michael Manley (Jamaica): Member
Trade Unionist, University Lecturer and Author; Prime Minister, 1972-80 and 1989-92.
• Marisela Padron Quero (Venezuela): Member
Sociologist; former research director, Fundacion Romulo Betancourt; former Minister of
the Family, Venezuela; Chief, Latin America and the Caribbean Division, New York.
Contd...
• Marie-Anglique Savane (Senegal): Member Sociologist; member of the
Commission on Global Governance; Director, Africa Division, New York.
• Karan Singh (India): Member
Diplomat and Minister, inter alia for Education and Health; Chairman of the Temple of
Understanding, a major international interfaith organization.
• Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Mexico): Member
Researcher in Political and Social Science; Professor at the Centre of Sociological
Studies, El Colegio de Mexico.
• Myong Won Suhr (Korea): Member
Former Minister of Education; Chairman of the Presidential Commission for
Educational Reform in Korea (1985-87)
• Zhou Nanzhao (China): Member
Educator; Vice-President and Professor, China National Institute for
Educational Research.
Alexandra Draxler: Secretary of the Commission
Document
• Report to UNESCO of the International
Commission on Education for the Twenty-first
Century is of 46 pages (Learning: The Treasure
Within).
Six tensions in the world
1. Global vs. Local.
2. Universal vs. Individual.
3. Traditional vs. Modern.
4. Long term vs. Short term.
5. Competition vs. Equality of Opportunities.
6. Unlimited knowledge vs. Limited Capacity of
human being.
 Six lines of inquiry were chosen, enabling the
Commission to approach its task from the angle of the
aims (both individual and societal) of the learning
process:
1. education and culture;
2. education and citizenship;
3. education and social cohesion;
4. education, work and employment;
5. education and development; and
6. education, research and science.
These six lines were complemented by three
transverse themes relating more directly to the
functioning of education systems: communications
technologies; teachers and teaching; and financing
and management.
• For the title of its report, the Commission
turned to one of La Fontaine’s fables, The
Ploughman and his Children:
• Be sure (the ploughman said), not to sell the
inheritance.....
• Our forebears left to us....
• A treasure lies concealed therein.....
Jacques Delor
Education: the necessary Utopia
• Looking ahead
• Tensions to be overcome
• Designing and building our common future
• Learning throughout life: the heartbeat of society
• The stages and bridges of learning: a fresh approach
• Getting the reform strategies right
• Broadening international co-operation in the global
village
Part I (1): OUTLOOKS
(From the local community to a world
society)
1. An increasingly crowded planet
2. Towards the globalization of human activity
3. Universal communication
4. The many faces of global interdependence
5. An uncertain world
6. The local and the global
7. Understanding the world and understanding others
 Points and Recommendations
• They require that overall consideration, extending well beyond the fields
of education and culture, be given, as of now, to the roles and structures
of international organizations.
• Gulf opening up between a minority of people who are capable of finding
their way successfully and those who are at the mercy of events and have
no say in the future of society.
• Recommendation
We must be guided by the Utopian aim of steering the world towards
greater mutual understanding, a greater sense of responsibility and
greater solidarity, through acceptance of our spiritual and cultural
differences. Education, by providing access to knowledge for all, has
precisely this universal task of helping people to understand the world
and to understand others.
Part I (2) OUT LOOKS
(From social cohesion to democratic
participation)
1. Education and the crisis of social cohesion
2. Education versus exclusion
3. Education and the forces at work in society: some
principles for action
4. Democratic participation
5. Civic education and the practice of citizenship
6. Information societies and learning societies
Recommendations
• Education policy must be sufficiently diversified.
• socialization of individuals must not conflict with
personal development.
• Education for conscious and active citizenship must
begin at school.
• strengthen the faculties of understanding and
judgement.
• It is the role of education to provide children and
adults with the cultural background that will enable
them to make sense of the changes taking place.
 Part I (3) OUT LOOKS
(From economic growth to human
development)
1. Highly inequitable-economic growth
2. The demand for education for economic purposes
3. The uneven distribution of knowledge
4. Education for women, an essential means of
promoting development
5. Counting the cost of progress
6. Economic growth and human development
7. Education for human development
 Recommendations
• showing more respect for nature and the structuring of people’s
time.
• A future-oriented study of the place of work in society.
• The establishment of new links between educational policy and
development policy.
• The establishment of new links between educational policy and
development policy,
• strengthening the bases of knowledge and skills in the countries
concerned: encouragement of initiative, teamwork, realistic
synergies
• The necessary improvement and general availability of basic
education (importance of the Jomtien Declaration).
 Part II (4): PRINCIPLES
The four Pillars of Education
1. Learning to know
A proposition (Q) must be true.
One cannot ‘know’ p if p is not true. If one
says Í know p, but p is not true’- the statement
becomes self contradictory, for a part of what
is involved in knowing p is that p is true.
Therefore, ‘knowing p is knowing p to be true’.
Learning to do

a) From skill to competence.

b) The ‘dematerialization’ of work and the rise
of the service sector.
c) Work in the informal economy.
Contd...
3. Learning to live together
a) learning to live with others
b) Discovering others
c) Working towards common objectives

4. Learning to be
 Recommendations

• Learning to know: by combining a sufficiently broad

general knowledge with the opportunity to work in
depth on a small number of subjects. This also means
learning to learn, so as to benefit from the opportunities
education provides throughout life.
• (Dev. of knowledge, skills, literacy, numeracy & critical
thinking)
Contd...

• Learning to do: in order to acquire not only an

occupational skill but also, more broadly, the
competence to deal with many situations and work
in teams. It also means learning to do in the context
of young peoples’ various social and work
experiences which may be informal, as a result of the
local or national context, or formal, involving
courses, alternating study and work.
Contd...

• Learning to live together: by developing an

understanding of other people and an appreciation
of interdependence - carrying out joint projects and
learning to manage conflicts - in a spirit of respect for
the values of pluralism, mutual understanding and
peace.
• (dev. of social skills & values, respect, concern for
others, interpersonal skills)
Contd...
• Learning to be: so as better to develop one’s
personality and be able to act with ever greater
autonomy, judgement and personal responsibility. In
that connection, education must not disregard any
aspect of a person’s potential: memory, reasoning,
aesthetic sense, physical capacities and
communication skills.
• (acts that foster personal dev.- body, mind and soul,
Creativity, personal discovery, inherent values)
Contd...

• Formal education systems tend to emphasize the

acquisition of knowledge to the detriment of other
types of learning; but it is vital now to conceive
education in a more encompassing fashion. Such a
vision should inform and guide future educational
reforms and policy, in relation both to contents and
to methods.
 Part II (5): PRINCIPLES

Learning throughout life

1. An imperative for democracy
2. A multidimensional education
3. New times, fresh fields
4. Education at the heart of society
5. Seeking out educational synergies
Recommendations
• The concept of learning throughout life is the key
that gives access to the twenty first century.
• In its new guise, continuing education (adults) is seen
as going far beyond what is already practised.
• making it possible to broaden and deepen strictly
vocational forms of training, including practical
training.
• ‘learning throughout life’ must take advantage of all
the opportunities offered by society.
PART III (6): DIRECTIONS
From Basic Education to University

a) A passport to life: Basic Education

b) The crossroads of life: Secondary
Education
c) Higher Education : throughout life
Recommendations
• Primary Education: 3R’s & ability to express, dialogue and
understanding.
• Science Education.
• Pupil-Teacher relations.

• Secondary Education: Arrange variety of individuals,

learning throughout life. Flexible choices.

• University Education: 04 functions

• Research & teaching;
• Highly specialized training courses for socio-economic life. To be open to
all.
• International Cooperation.
• Address social & ethical problems (Provide valid answers to challenges).
PART III (7): DIRECTIONS
Teachers in search of New Perspectives
1. The world comes into the classroom
2. Expectations and responsibilities
3. Teaching: an art and a science
4. The quality of teachers
5. Learning what and how to teach
6. Working teachers
7. The school and the community
8. The administration of the school
9. Drawing teachers into decision-making on educational matters
10.Favourable conditions for effective teaching
Recommendations

• Social recognition.

• Give suitable resources.

• Learning though out life leads to learning society.

• Teachers must update knowledge and skills.

• Team work (exchange of teachers).

From chain to pyramid and to network...

Chain Pyramid Network

 PART III (8): DIRECTIONS
(Choices for education: the political factor)
1. Choice of education means choice of society
2. The demand for education
3. Evaluation and public debate
4. Opportunities offered by innovation and decentralization
5. Involving the stakeholders in the educational undertaking
6. Encouraging genuine autonomy
7. The need for overall regulation of the system
8. Economic and financial choices
9. The force of financial constraints
10. Pointers for the future
11. Using the resources of the information society
12. The impact of the new technologies on society and on
education
13. A wide-ranging debate
 Recommendations
• Choosing a type of education means choosing a type of society.
• Involving the different persons and institutions active in society in
educational decision-making.
• Education is a community asset which cannot be regulated by market
forces alone.
• PPP
• Access to knowledge in the world of tomorrow (Sc. & Tech.):
1. diversification and improvement of distance education.
2. greater use of those technologies in adult education.
3. strengthening of infrastructures
PART III (9): DIRECTIONS
(International co-operation: educating
the global village)
1. Women and girls: education for equality (Beijing
Conference)
2. Education and social development
3. Making debt-swaps work for education
4.A UNESCO observatory for the new information
technologies
5. From aid to partnership
6. Scientists, research and international exchanges
7. New tasks for UNESCO
Recommendations
• Women Education.
• Regional grouping (aid policy).
• Debt swaps should be encouraged in order to offset the
adverse effect of adjustment policies and policies for the
reduction of domestic and foreign deficits on educational
spending.
• Alliances between ministries at regional level and between
countries facing similar problems.
• partnerships between international institutions: projects and
initiatives (Jomtien Conference).
 Contd... Indicators.....
• national investment in education should be encouraged.
• UNESCO observatory should be set up to look into the
new information technologies.
• Intellectual co-operation in the field of education should
be encouraged.
Six Principles of the Commission
1. Education as basic human right & universal human value.
2. Education serves society.
3. Triple goals: equity, relevance & excellence.
4. Renewal of education through thoughtful examination.
5. New approaches of education as per UNESCO.
6. Education as a responsibility of whole society.

Thank You