Promotion of education
	UNESCO’s Strategic Objectives for Education, 2002-2007 - Promoting education as a fundamental right in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Improving the quality of education through the diversification of contents and methods and the promotion of universally shared values - Promoting experimentation, innovation and the diffusion and sharing of information and best practices as well as policy dialogue in education.

 

The objective of promoting education as a fundamental right presents challenges in that some donors and field staff of humanitarian agencies do not recognize yet the urgency of restoring access to education to children affected by crisis. Children cannot be stored like tents or blankets, awaiting an end to war and conflict before beginning or resuming their education; this is the recipe for a ‘lost generation’, who have identified themselves with conflict and seek the earliest opportunity to take up arms against their perceived enemies. The objective of improving the quality of education is important even in situations of emergency and crisis, to meet the psycho-social and developmental needs of war-affected students, and help them build a better future for their own societies. The objective of promoting experimentation, innovation and the diffusion and sharing of information and best practices is necessary in a field facing such large challenges as emergency education and education for reconstruction. Policy research and information sharing on education for crisis-affected populations There is a need to build up a multidisciplinary network of researchers who study the ways in which education has sometimes contributed to the outbreak of violent conflict and the ways in which education can prevent such conflict or its recurrence. Solutions are being sought through diverse macro and micro level programmes, seeking to inculcate universal values of peace and tolerance, and these programmes need to be analysed and built upon, so that there can be scaling up of successful approaches to meet the needs of education in the twenty-first century. UNESCO will build up such a network. It will further support the development of databases on education for peace, and on education for crisis-affected populations. Emergency education in EFA national plans for action Education in emergencies has tended to be treated as separate from the work of education planners, who have now been required to include this component in their EFA national plans of action. This will require a new approach, as emergencies cannot easily be predicted. UNESCO will prepare guidelines to help Member States address the emergency component of their plans. UNESCO will train its field staff in this area and will seek resources to provide such training to concerned national decision-makers, planners and managers of education. Providing leadership and strategic vision in major crisis and post-conflict situations Emergency education response is often fragmented, due to the limited mandates of the United Nations agencies concerned. Only UNESCO has the mandate to advocate for system wide and value-based renewal and reform in post-crisis situations. It is vital that UNESCO undertake this function in all major crisis and post-conflict reconstruction programmes, with a special emphasis on activities not sufficiently covered by other agencies. Key activities for stabilization and for national reconstruction include secondary, vocational and higher education. These activities also support the process of EFA, through provision of teachers, as well as providing high-level manpower for social and economic development, often badly needed after the emigration of educated people during a conflict. Negotiation of curricular reform and innovation to promote universal values is another key area for UNESCO involvement. In order to ensure the strategic vision for educational reconstruction, it is necessary to bring government institutions, United Nations agencies and civil society together to promote dialogue and to empower national institutions and professionals to develop a shared vision, in which education contributes to peace, stability and prosperity. This should result in complementary proposals for action in specific sub-sectors by specific agencies, following the principle of capacity-building, and with credibility and attractiveness to international assistance bodies.