Unesco: An Introduction to Its Education Program

Abstract

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), founded in fall 1946, was the postwar offspring of hope and faith in a better world. Its mandate was to contribute to peace and security by advancing the mutual knowledge and understandings of peoples; by encouraging education and the spread of culture; and by protecting, increasing, and sharing in every appropriate way the world's cultural and scientific heritage. It worked toward this goal firm in the belief that wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.' Thirty-six years have passed since Unesco began its work. Since then, membership has grown from 26 to 157 nations, the frontiers of knowledge have been extended into hitherto unknown areas, and the fortunes of war and peace have often hung in fragile balance. For these and other reasons, Unesco programs in education, science, culture, and communications have become wide reaching, very diversified, and at times controversial. While the seriousness of certain areas of controversy and the potential long-term damage they could cause the organization should not be ignored, it would be useful to step back from them for a brief moment and take a look at the organization in the light of the possibilities it offers for intellectual cooperation and mutual assistance in the field of education. The Unesco program in education is a delicately orchestrated politicopedagogical response to a wide range of educational issues and problems. It is broadly based, general in character, and, from the viewpoint of an advanced industrialized nation, rather thin. This may be inevitable, given the fact that Unesco must respond to the stated needs and interests of 155 Member States. These needs and interests often relate to problems such as inequality of educational opportunity and illiteracy that defy simple solution on the national, regional, or even local levels. With more than 3 decades of experience in intellectual cooperation and field assistance and a political neutrality rooted firmly in its constitution, Unesco is in a position to provide governments, nongovernmental organizations, and interested scholars possibilities for intellectual contact and joint action that might otherwise not exist. Through the years, the U.S. government and many individual Americans have used the Unesco forum and, in fact, have played an active role in many of Unesco's education