MAY 1983 6 French francs

The

UnescoCourierDUCATION

The way ahead

A time to live...

USSR Hands that learn

In recent years, the need to strengthen the links between education and the world of work has become a

major concern of educators. One objective is to enable students to move freely into professional activity

and thus to contribute to their countries' economic development. An advantage of a closer liaison is that

it arouses interest in manual work which too often has little appeal for young people. Above, a school

workshop in the Soviet Union where more than 2,000 technical centres have been established, each serving

a number of local schools.

The

UnescoCourierA window open on the world

MAY 1983 36th YEAR

Published in 26 languages

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A selection in Braille is published quarterlyin English, French, Spanish and Korean

Published monthly by UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization

Editorial, Sales and Distribution Offices

Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris

Subscription rates

1 year: 58 French Francs

Binder for a year's issues: 46 FF

Editor-in-chief: Edouard Glissant

ISSN 0041 - 5278No. 5 - 1983 - OPI 83-1 - 398 A

page

4 EDUCATION FOR ALL

by Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow

EDUCATION IN A CHANGING WORLD

by Sema Tanguiane

STEMMING THE TIDE OF ILLITERACY

by Le Thành Khôl

13 MILESTONES TO THE LEARNING SOCIETY

by Torsten Husén

20 ROBINSON CRUSOE GOES TO SCHOOL

Six pioneers of modern education

by Hermann Rohrs

24 THE EDUCATION GAP

A hard look at the plight of the world's rural areas

by Hamidou Lailaba Maiga

31 THE MEDIA IN THE CLASSROOM

by Michel Souchon

34 IN BRIEF

2 A TIME TO LIVE...

USSR: Hands that learn

riDUCATION is one of Unesco's

#y major concerns. For reasonsJL^J of space, a single issue of theUnesco Courier would not have been suf¬

ficient to approach this vast subject, and

consequently the Editors have decided to

devote two issues, appearing at a two-

month interval, to an examination of

some of the educational problems facing

the modern world.

The present issuefocuses on the current

outlook for education. In introductory

texts, Mr. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, the

Director-General of Unesco, and Mr.

Sema Tanguiane, Assistant Director-

General for Education, chart some of the

major trends which will be decisive for

education in the coming years. The

historical origins and evolution of these

developments are retraced by Torsten

Husén, while Hermann Rohrs evokes the

thought and action ofsome of the educa¬

tional thinkers who have shaped modern

approaches to educational questions.

In spite ofall the efforts that have been

mobilized over the years, illiteracy re¬

mains one of the most serious social pro¬

blems of our time, and, for the interna¬

tional community, a major challenge

which Unesco is committed to tackle. In

this issue articles on literacy teaching by

Le Thanh Khôi and on education in rural

areas by Hamidou Lailaba Maiga, assess

what has been achieved so far in this

sphere and analyse the conditions for

future progress. Lastly, Michel Souchon

shows how informatics and the mass

media, if wisely used, can help educators

at every level and in every country to at¬

tain the ambitious and legitimate objec¬

tives which are theirs.

Our A ugust issue will be devoted to cer¬

tain strategic aspects of educational

policy. Articles will examine promising

approaches to problems in such fields as

lifelong education, science teaching,

education provided in the Qur'anic

schools, the education of women, the

teaching of aesthetics, peace education,

and the education of the handicapped.

We hope that ideas and information

presented in these two issues of the

Unesco Courier will signpost for our

readers some of the ways in which educa¬

tion can beset on a more equitablefooting

and foster a wider measure of under¬

standing in the world today.

Cover : A primary school at Simla, northern

India

Photo © Claude Sauvageot, Paris

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DUCATION fulfils the twin functions of social

reproduction and innovation. It helps to

ensure the transmission of the sum of know¬

ledge, experience and values of each society while

at the same time it inculcates the individual and col¬

lective aptitudes necessary to social progress. Thus

its purpose is to encourage social renewal while

respecting the unique features of each society.

Nowadays education must also face up to two

fundamental challenges posed by the realities of our

time: to match itself to the world-wide scope of the

increasingly complex problems of today, and to

achieve the democratization necessary to enable it

better to respond to the needs and aspirations of

people of all ages.

The future of each community is henceforth be¬

ing shaped in a planetary context. Reciprocal in¬

fluences are becoming ever more numerous, accen¬

tuating the interdependence of our destinies, the

mutual interpénétration of our cultures and the

of our problems. At themultidimensional nature

same time there is a universal need to adapt to pro¬

gress in the sciences and i

and their application

variety of activities. Education must become more

and more in tune with these decisive aspects of

contemporary reality.

Furthermore, education has to respond to one of

the major developments of our time: the universal

recognition of the equal worth of all individuals,

whatever their social situation or their views, and

therefore of their absolute right

benefits of education

we speak of education for

primarily, therefore, offering each

Hence the prime

universalization of primary

:cess of elong education offering adults the

possibility of completing their studies, coupled with

vocational retraining throughout the different

stages of their lives, thus opening up to them an op¬

portunity of constant self-enrichment in every field

of knowledge and skill, particularly in the case of

the elderly, the handicapped and the most disad¬

vantaged workers.

In addition, real equality must be afforded to girls

and women; there must be an extension of educa¬

tional facilities for the inhabitants of rural areas,

who are far less well provided for than city-

dwellers. In fact, the majority of the world's 824

million illiterate adults and the 121 million children

of school age who do not attend school live in the

rural areas.

Finally, education for all means

succeed offered to all, not only within the educa-

n modern technologies

an increasingly wide

to e

When all, we

individual

are

the

possibility of access to education

importance of the^IPeducation and the fight against illiteracy.

inThe enrolment of children and adolescents

school must necessarily be accompanied by a pro-

tional system itself, but also in society, in other

words, a real possibility of professional and

advancement.

Unesco takes particular pride in the fact that, in

conformity with its Constitution which enjoins the

Organization "to advance the ideal of equality of

educational opportunity", it has opened up many of

the paths along which education has begun to travel

in the service of all mankind. The democratization of

education, which is the common denominator of

Unesco's activities in the educational field, now has

a consistent programme devoted to it within the

framework of the Organization's Second Medium-

Term Plan for the period 1984-1989.

It is to be hoped that this issue of the Unesco

Courier will give readers throughout the world a

broad overview of the efforts Unesco is making in

this field and contribute to the strengthening of the

ideal of justice, peace and individual and collective

progress, which is the aim and finality of all

ecf

AMADOU-MAHTAR M'BOW

Director-General of Unesco

i

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The development of primary education is a prerequisite for the permanent eradication of illiteracy, yet, today, 121 million children

of primary school age do not attend school. This is why Unesco is making the development and renewal of primary education one

of its main priorities over the next ten years. Above, pupils at a mission station school in Queensland, Australia.

Education in

a changing world

THE conception, aims and orien¬

tations of education are deter¬

mined by society, but education

itself greatly influences the evolution of

society, and the task of preparing it to

meet the demands of the coming decades

should be undertaken now.

With all due prudence, and without

seeking to impose norms, any considera-

SEMA TANGUIANE is Unesco's Assistant

Director-General for Education. He was a

director of research at the Academy of

Sciences of the USSR beforejoining Unesco in

1975.

by Sema Tanguiane

tion of the future development of educa¬

tion should take account of observed

trends and problems and try to identifythe factors that may influence its

evolution.

Examination shows that in recent

decades there has been a considerable

growth in the numbers of pupils and

teachers and that this growth has been

particularly rapid at the secondary and

higher levels. It also reveals, however,

that some 121 million children of

primary school age do not attend school

and that many countries have failed to

achieve the target of primary schooling

for all by 1980 which was set in the early

1960s by the different regional in¬

tergovernmental conferences on

education.

This analysis highlights the vast and

persistent problem of illiteracy. From

700 million adult illiterates in 1950 to 758

million in 1970 and 824 million in 1980,

the number of illiterates is likely to ex¬

ceed 900 million before the end of the

century if present trends continue. This

problem, one of the most dramatic facing

both educationists and governmental

policy makers, is also a problem that con¬

cerns the entire world community.

Because of its importance and the need to

solve it before the end of the century it

has engaged the attention of all regional

conferences of ministers of education

organized by Unesco as well as of the 2 1 st

session of the Unesco General Con¬

ference. The General Conference ap¬

proved a strategy whose aim is to solve

this problem by trying to achieve a higher

rate of school enrolment, so as to attack

the problem at its source, and by adult

literacy teaching.

The democratization of education,

which derives from the concept of the

right to education as being one of the

basic human rights, is essential to all

social progress as well as to the develop¬

ment of the individual. It is not only a

matter of eliminating quantitative

disparities and of correcting qualitative

inequalities, but also of providing

everyone with an education that fulfils its

essential function by giving to all a com¬

mon body of knowledge, skills and

know-how that meets the needs of both

individuals and of different social

groups.

This imperative of meeting different

aspirations and needs is linked to another

problem, that of the relevance and ade¬

quacy of education to the various roles

and functions it is called upon to fulfil. It

should contribute to the full, harmonious

development of the personality, to the

preparation of individuals for the

responsibilities they will assume in socie¬

ty and for their full and active participa¬

tion in economic, social, cultural and

civic life. It should also take account of

increasingly rapid social changes and

contribute effectively to progress.

The development of education does

not take place in Isolation. It is subject tothe often decisive influence of phen¬

omena, processes and factors which

distinguish societies, their evolution and

the changes which occur in them. These

include demographic trends, the

economy, science and technology, the en¬

vironment, social, cultural and political

factors, and international relations.

The acceleration of scientific and

technical progress, and the growing

aspiration of all social categories to ac¬

tive participation in economic, cultural

and political life, create an imperative de¬

mand for the democratization of educa¬

tion. It is essential to guarantee to

everyone the full exercise of his or her

right to education, and thus to enable

each individual to participate in the

changes which are taking place in an in¬

creasingly complex society and to ensure

the exploitation for society's benefit of

the reserves of human intelligence, talent

and energy.

Consequently, increased pressure can

be expected in many countries for real

democratization and equality of chances

in regard to education, especially for

workers and underprivileged classes,

both in town and country. In this

perspective, it can be presumed that, in

places where mass illiteracy exists, grow¬

ing stress will be placed on efforts to

eliminate it by expanding children's

school attendance and intensifying adult

literacy programmes.

Socio-economic changes and the speed

of technological progress call for greater

professional and social mobility. This de¬

mand is evident not only in developed

countries; it is also felt in developing

countries. It will undoubtedly influence

not only education policies and the fixing

of the initial level of pre-employment in¬

struction, but also the nature of educa¬

tion. Education will have to be

polyvalent and in many cases its content

will have to be re-defined in depth. Here

the link between education and the work¬

ing world and particularly the introduc¬

tion of productive work into the educa¬

tional process as an element of our con¬

temporary general culture and an essen¬

tial factor in preparing for active life and

mobility, acquire their full significance.

Likewise, it can be expected that this

trend will demand the introduction of

permanent education on an ever greater

scale.

The growing role of science and

technology in the development of

societies is another factor which will cer¬

tainly influence education policies and

the evolution of educational systems at

all levels. These systems will very prob¬

ably be obliged to give increasing priority

to the training of higher and intermediate

level personnel and also to introducing

the masses, via general education, to

science and technology. It will be

necessary to foster the receptivity needed

for an understanding of the role and ap¬

plication of science and technology, in

order to prepare people to live and act in

societies in which the most advanced

technologies are entering more and more

into the most varied aspects of profes¬

sional and daily life, and indeed to make

them an organic part of the national

culture of every people.

The tendency to assign more impor¬

tance in development policies to cultural

problems will probably become much

more marked than in previous decades in

the educational policies of many coun¬

tries. At the same time, the intensifica¬

tion and diversification of cultural action

on the one hand, and the development of

extra-scholastic forms of education both

One of Unesco's main tasks for the period 1 984 to

1 989 is "to help pave the way for the widest par¬

ticipation by individuals and groups in the life of

the societies to which they belong and in that of

the world community". The persistence of il¬

literacy is a major obstacle to such participation

and its elimination is one of Unesco's main objec¬

tives. Right, the nation-wide literacy campaign

launched in Nicaragua in 1980 has reduced the

country's illiteracy rate from 50 to 1 3 per cent (see

the Unesco Courier, June 1980).

In recent years the educational scene has been marked by a constant search for

new methods, ranging from the redefinition of syllabuses to structural reform and

the establishment of experimental schools, like the one shown above in the USA.

All these initiatives are aimed at ensuring the full development of the individual andat making possible his or her smooth integration into society.

Who needs paper when there is vellum to write on? For those who thirst for

knowledge, any moment of the day, any surface on which to write, even one as

unusual as that used by the Vietnamese boy in our photo below, affords an oppor¬

tunity to learn. The aim of the democratization of education, which is a necessary

consequence of the concept that the right to education is one of the basic human

rights, must be to ensure "equal opportunities for all" by offering the "best oppor¬

tunities to each".

Photo © Claude Sauvageon Pans

for children and adults, on the other,

show that educational action and action

in the cultural field are drawing closer

together. It may be supposed that this

trend will become more marked and that

it will call for ever closer co-ordination of

educational and cultural policies, with

obvious consequences for the planning

and organization of educational systems

that integrate school education and

education outside the classroom within a

coherent global framework.

Consideration of the future develop¬

ment of education cannot fail to take into

account the effects that the spectacular

development of the communications

media and their growing importance in

society have for education. Contrary to

what some people may think, this will not

reduce the role of education. Indeed, it

may conceivably become more impor¬

tant. At any rate, it is evident that educa¬

tional systems will have to take account

of the phenomenon to an ever greater

degree, and they will have to be clearly

defined in the light of this development,

which will undoubtedly continue. How

can education enhance the value of the

countless messages and items of informa¬

tion dispensed by the media, how can itutilize and control them, making them

truly educational? Will this problem be

solved in the coming decades?

Finally, it is obvious that international

relations provide a framework that tendsto favour the development of education.

They influence not only the

psychological climate in which education

is dispensed, but the resources available

finance it. These will vary considerably

depending on whether the world moves

towards disarmament or towards the

arms race. At the same time, it is clear

that a function of education is to pro¬

mote an improvement in relations bet¬

ween peoples, thus contributing to the

establishment of a spirit of international

understanding and peace, and thereby to

the advent of a new international

economic order based upon justice and

solidarity.

Indeed, the ever more intricate inter¬

connexions between education and other

elements of social life make it increasing¬

ly difficult to draw a distinction between

the internal and external problems of any

educational system. One of the

challenges of the future will be to

preserve the specificity of education as a

process and domain in its own right

while, at the same time, placing it in¬

creasingly at the service of society.

Moreover, it is only by remaining

faithful to its specificity that it can make

its full contribution to society.

The democratization of education as

well as its role in the service of the na¬

tional and international communities

both demand and justify the mobiliza¬

tion of all available financial, material

and human resources and their optimal

utilization. Clearly there is room for im¬

provement in the distribution of

resources, in a reduction of unit costs and

in recourse to new sources of financing.

But the fact remains that education is

costly and, as far as unit costs are con¬

cerned it is impossible to go below a cer¬

tain threshold without impairing the

quality of education.

The fact is that the democratization of

education cannot be conceived solely in

terms of quantitative expansion, even if

this is more than ever necessary. In many

cases, a rapid increase in the number of

pupils has been followed by a decline in

the quality of education. More than

anything else, this would impair the ef¬

fective equality in chances of success

which is a condition for genuine

democratization and which demands a

form of education that can contribute ef¬

fectively to the full development of

everyone, compensating where necessary

for the physical, social or cultural han¬

dicaps from which certain underprivileg¬

ed individuals or groups suffer. Now cer¬

tain experiments prove that it is possible

at the same time to generalize education

and to improve its quality. It is no doubt

along these lines that solutions should be

sought, no matter how the economic

situation evolves and no matter what the

size of the financial resources that

governments allocate to education.

The link between the permanent tasks

of education and its new responsibilities

should also be determined in the context

of foreseeable developments. It is univer¬

sally recognized that, in addition to its

permanent tasks, education should

prepare young people not only to live in

a changing society but to lead it, and

should help adults to come to terms with

it. It is also unanimously agreed that,

although education cannot by itself or in

a decisive degree resolve the major prob¬

lems of the contemporary world, it can

8

and should contribute to this goal. All

agree too that education can and should

contribute to the maintenance and

strengthening of peace in a world which

lives under the permanent threat of a

nuclear catastrophe. All rightly believe

that education is called upon to make an

important contribution to development,

to reducing intolerable disparities bet¬

ween countries, to establishing an inter¬

national order based on greater justice

and on respect for the equal rights of

peoples, as well as to protecting the en¬

vironment which is humanity's common

heritage.

Because it has failed to change as

quickly as its social and technological en¬

vironment, education sometimes seems

to be lacking in realism, and this may give

rise to scepticism and disaffection

amongst young people. To ensure the

necessary coherence and continuity bet¬

ween education and society, many prob¬

lems have still to be solved in order to

achieve better co-ordination between the

roles of the different educational agents:

the school, the family, the work environ¬

ment, the various extra-scholastic

organisms which propagate messages,

knowledge or information or which pro¬

vide training in skills.

One of the most striking technological

advances is the means which radio and

television, electronics and micro-

informatics make available to education.

But the development of what is

sometimes called "parallel education"

which dispenses information of very une¬

qual value, in which the ephemeral and

the fortuitous often take precedence over

what is essential and permanent, also

raises many questions which point to

lines of investigation. One of them is

related to the measures to be taken in

order to ensure that education prepares

the child, the adolescent or the adult to

select, interpret and arrange these items

of information in order to transform

them into knowledge. The other one, less

frequently mentioned, is the effect which

the use of certain new technologies in

education has on the development of the

personality.

These new problems will serve to

underline the current evolution of the

teacher's role. The importance and com¬

plexity of their initial and further train¬

ing, which is universally considered to be

an essential factor in educational pro¬

gress, will be increased. In this connex¬

ion, it is also well to remember that the

future educationists who are now being

trained will be teaching children who will

not embark upon adult life until the next

century.

In any reflection of an international

character, it is important to deal with

problems differently according to the

country or group of countries. Never¬

theless, it seems desirable to bear in mind

that there is a certain continuity in the

concerns of the international communi¬

ty. This is an added reason for exploring

the possibilities of international co¬

operation with a view to furthering the

development of education and seeking

solutions to foreseeable common

problems.Sema Tanguiane

"An illiterate is like a blind man for

whom failure and adversity lie

everywhere in wait" reads the cap¬

tion to this 1920 poster from the

Soviet Union (bottom right). With the

promulgation in 1919 of Lenin's

decree making it a duty for everyone

between the ages of 8 and 50, as part

of the revolutionary process, to learn

to read and write and the launching of

the "Down with Illiteracy" campaign

in 1923, the Soviet Union was

transformed into a gigantic school. Il¬

literacy dropped dramatically from 75

per cent in 1917 to 43 per cent in

1 926, and to 1 1 per cent in 1 939. The

Soviet experience influenced to some

extent every subsequent literacy

campaign. The notion of individual

fulfilment through the active par¬

ticipation in society that literacy

makes possible comes across clearly

in the poster from Ecuador (top right)

whose message reads: "to become

literate is to discover our world". For

the Brazilian educator Paulo Freiré,

men and women, whether literate or

not, are creators of culture. For him

learning to read and write is a political

act and constitutes a step towards full

participation in the life of the com¬

munity. Freire's method of adult

education involves the creation of

"Circles of Culture" whose members,

aided by a series of ten pictures (one

of which is reproduced far right), are

encouraged to analyse the realities of

their lives, using carefully selected

"keywords" as the point of departure

for discussion, a process he calls

"conscientization". Once the par¬

ticipants have gained confidence and

pride in their culture they are strongly

motivated to learn to read and write.

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Stemming

the tide of

illiteracy

by Le Thành Khôi

THE number of illiterate persons throughout the world isincreasing. From 700 million in 1950, the ranks of the

illiterate rose to 758 million in 1970 and reached 824million in 1980. If the present trend continues, there will be 884million in 1980, excluding China, the People's Republic ofKorea, and Viet Nam.

Paradoxically, however, the rate of illiteracy is decreasing. In1950, 44 per cent of the world's adult population over the age offifteen were illiterate. By 1970 the figure had dropped to 32.4 percent, and in 1980 it stood at 28.9 per cent.

Illiteracy affects women more than men (34.7 per cent as op¬

posed to 23 per cent in 1980), and rural communities more thanurban centres (the former are on average three times harder hit).Even industrialized countries are discovering, or rediscovering,the problem, not only among their immigrant worker popula¬tions but within certain social strata which, because they readand write infrequently, are tending to regress into illiteracy. j>

LE THANH KI10I, of Viet Nam, is a professor at the Sorbonne

(University ofPans V). He was a consultant to the International Com¬

mission on the Development of Education (1971) and rapporteur for

the expert group on the evaluation of the Experimental World Literacy

Programme (1975). He has carried out missions to 32 countries and is

the author of many published works including L'Industrie de

l'Enseignement (1967), L'Enseignement en Afrique Tropicale, (1971),

L'Education en Milieu Rural (1974), Jeunesse Exploitée, Jeunesse

Perdue? (1978) and L'Education Comparée (1981).

Yet development cannot be achieved unless workers reach a

certain level of education. Some observers have claimed that

literacy is not indispensable to growth. England and France, they

point out, began to industrialize in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries with illiterate populations.

This theory does not exactly correspond to the facts. For one

thing, the percentage of illiterates in both those countries did not

exceed 60 per cent. Furthermore, technology then was far less

complicated than it is now, and industrialization took place over

decades. If the historical record does not permit the conclusion

that schooling led to industrialization, it at least shows that there

is a parallel between economic growth and the decline of il¬

literacy. No country has ever attained the former without causing

the latter to diminish.

In the twentieth century the problem has been defined in new

terms, for it now has a political as well as an economic dimen¬

sion. Teaching literacy to adults has been theorized and closely

linked to social change.

An initial concept emerged in the wake of the Russian Revolu¬

tion of October 1917 and was to have world-wide repercussions.

The struggle against illiteracy became an integral part of the

revolution at every level: political, social, economic and cultural.

To bring literacy to the masses was to awaken their political con¬

sciousness and mobilize them in defence of the new régime.

Adult literacy was seen to be even more important than the

education of children, for adults were at once citizens, soldiers,

producers and parents. As early as December 1919 Lenin pro¬

mulgated a decree making it a duty for everyone between the ages

of eight and fifty to learn to read and write either in his native

tongue or in Russian, depending on the choice of the individual.

In 1923 a voluntary organization known as "Down with Il¬

literacy" was created and launched a vast campaign to raise the

necessary funds and to mobilize teachers, students, secondary

school pupils and clerical workers. The country was transformed

into a gigantic school. Gradually literacy came to be associated

with the teaching of basic industrial and agricultural technology.

Illiteracy dropped from 75 per cent in 1917 to 43 per cent in 1926,

and 11 per cent in 1939. Since 1932 all the nationalities in the

Soviet Union have possessed a written language, and can do their

studies in their native tongues.

All subsequent socialist revolutions have drawn inspiration

from this feat. In Viet Nam, immediately after the revolution of

August 1945, Ho Chi Minh called on the population to perform

three basic tasks: to conquer famine, foreign aggression, and ig¬

norance. The three were interdependent: as long as a nation is

underdeveloped and uneducated it is at the mercy of imperialism,

while conversely imperialism perpetuates underdevelopment and

lack of education. A country cannot achieve its economic and

social revolution without promoting a cultural revolution. Na¬

tional and social revolution is the driving force behind the

development of education which, in turn, bolsters the revolution

because education increases the political awareness of a people

and fosters its active participation in the revolutionary process.

It was from political and military directives that the peasants

learned to read. When the agrarian reform was launched in 1953,

literacy teaching became a part of the class struggle in the coun¬

tryside. It aimed to make the peasants understand how the social

and economic structure was the root cause of their deprivation.

It also showed the advantages they would reap from the over¬

throw of their landlords. Illiteracy was wiped out in the plains of

North Viet Nam in 1958, and three years later in the mountain

areas inhabited by minorities most of whom owe their ability to

read and write to the revolution.

The literacy campaign in Cuba in 1960 was also conceived as

a vast revolutionary movement. An army of young

volunteers 268,000 workers, students and teachers taught

over 700,000 illiterates how to read and write in one year. They

used a text-book, Alfabeticemos, which in addition to a section

on general approach consisted of texts on twenty-four themes

connected with the revolution, the land, the economy, im¬

perialism, and democracy, in conjunction with the fifteen lessons

in the primer Venceremos which also dealt with questions

; »ir

'

Adult education in India is aimed

primarily at the illiterate population

between the ages of 1 5 and 35. The

instruction given covers basic

literacy skills, functional develop¬

ment and the promotion of social

awareness. A number of Rural Func¬

tional Literacy Projects have been

launched which are financed by the

central government but ad¬

ministered by the authorities of the

individual States. In Bihar State

priority has been given to women's

education and in rural districts local

women are responsible for the

supervision of the women's adult

education centres and the teaching

given. Right, women workers in

Bihar State; in the background is the

Tata steel plant, the largest in India.

Photo Unesco

In 1979, Ethiopia launched a

massive campaign aimed at

eliminating illiteracy by 1987. In

two years 34,000 literacy centres

had been opened, 10 million people

had received literacy instruction and

20 million books had been printed to

maintain the literacy effort. These

initial successes earned for Ethiopia

the 1980 literacy prize of the Inter¬

national Reading Association. But

additional funds were needed and in

June .1981 the Director-General of

Unesco . launched ah international

appeal for material and financial aid

to complement the massive effort

being made by Ethiopia itself. Below

left, an adult literacy class in

[ progress.

Photo Dominique Roger, Unesco

relating to the revolution and were illustrated by photographs

which helped the student to grasp the spirit of the texts.

Technical work was aided by a propaganda thrust with three

main objectives: to motivate the illiterate by using all available

means from the mass media to fiestas and graduation

ceremonies; to create a climate of opinion which would en¬

courage as many people as possible to volunteer to be teachers;

to popularize the technological aspect of the campaign. The

teachers, as well as their pupils, acquired a political training.

Mostly volunteers from the cities, they came to know and

understand the peasants and workers.

Many other governments have tried to follow these examples

when launching their own mass literacy campaigns. Most of

them failed because the political factor, the national and social

revolutions basic to the cases cited here, were lacking. This is why

another concept, that of "functional literacy", emerged during

the 1960s. Launched by Unesco, it was adopted by the World

Congress on the Eradication of Illiteracy held in Teheran in

1965, and made operational the following year in the form of an

"experimental world literacy programme." This programme

was implemented with the assistance of the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP), Unesco, the Food and

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the In¬

ternational Labour Organisation (ILO), and the World Health

Organization (WHO) in some twenty countries until 1973.

The objective was to make literacy a basic part of development

projects (in practice development was generally reduced to its

economic dimension). The corollaries of "functional literacy"

are the following:

selectivity of activities which relate to areas of industrialization

and to the modernization of agriculture, and which concern

those individuals who are most likely to profit from the scheme

and who are, therefore the most motivated to learn;

intensity of the acquisition of knowledge and of the attitudes

which contribute to development;

adaptability to the needs of each project of each category of ,

workers; hence a diversification of programmes;

integration of teaching into everyday life, the workers' profes¬

sional activities, and the problems they meet when confronted

with change.

Before drawing up a functional literacy programme, apreliminary study is made of the environment (agricultural or in¬

dustrial) and of the persons concerned so that a list may be com¬

piled of the appropriate subjects to be studied and a timetable of

activities may be fixed. Theoretically, the illiterate persons are

encouraged to assume responsibility for each of the problems

they are asked to study and solve. In practice, more often than

not this solution is handed to them and the teacher's role consists

simply in getting them to recognize its soundness and to apply it

(whether the activity in question is planting out rice, harvesting

cotton, irrigation, health care, insect control, self-management,or marketing).

During these explorations of their everyday problems, workers

are taught to read, write and count, and their capacity for

11

reasoning and understanding is developed. Theoretical training

(professional, technico-scientific, socio-economic, oral and writ¬

ten expression) goes hand in hand with practical training at the

worksite. Synchronized learning to read and write aims from the

outset to develop an aptitude for simultaneously perceiving sym¬

bols and their meaning, in accordance with this progression:

sentence -» word(s) -» syllables -» letters -> syllables -»

word(s) -» sentence.

In addition to "revolutionary" literacy and "functional"

literacy, there is a third method, literacy through

"conscientization ' ' .

This is the approach of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freiré.

His point of departure is a reflection on culture which man

creates by virtue of his work. But the illiterate person is oppress¬

ed. If education is to liberate, not tame him, it must make him

capable of critical awareness of his own living conditions. It must

make him discover, by a method based on dialogue, that he is a

subject and not an object, that he plays an active role in his en¬

vironment. The illiterate person then feels the need to learn to

read and write in order to become more effective and more

capable of changing his situation. At this point learning to read

and write can begin. The achievement of literacy is a form of self-education progressing from the inside to the outer world through

the illiterate person's efforts helped by the educator: the content

and the method merge into a single process.

This is why the vocabulary that is taught is not put together

from the outside but springs directly from the verbal universe of

the particular group. Certain "key-words" are chosen on the

grounds of their syntactical and semantic values and their social

and cultural connotations. Examples: people, land, house,

poverty, work, drought, election. Each word is illustrated by a

picture depicting the life of the group. The illiterate person learns

syllables and families of sounds, and composes other words with

the combinations he can use. Within a month and a half or two

months he can read a newspaper, write a simple letter, and ex¬

press himself on questions of local and national interest.

What conclusions can be drawn from these different

experiments?

Motivation is the essential factor in success. It may be political

(social and national revolution), ideological (conscientization),

or economic (functional literacy). But only revolution is capable

of rousing a mass movement and eradicating illiteracy in a

relatively short space of time. The other methods have only suc¬ceeded within limited groups.

Motivation is not enough, however. Literacy campaigns must

be well organizedand this does not mean that the State must

direct the whole operation. On the contrary, it is preferable for

the people themselves to take matters in hand, with a minimum

of outside help. Post-literacy work is indispensable if regression

into illiteracy is to be avoided. There must be newspapers, books

and libraries and a constant social pressure must be maintained

(e.g. schooling for children, the development of co-operatives).

The language factor plays an important role. Literacy teachingin a mother tongue is bound to be more successful than in

another language. The spoken language may, for instance, be

different from the classical one, as in the case of spoken Arabic

as opposed to classical Arabic. This is a source of additionaldifficulties.

Lastly, let us examine the question of teaching literacy to

women, which faces far more obstacles than teaching literacy to

men. These obstacles may be material, such as a lack of transpor¬

tation facilities in rural areas, the burden of household and fami¬

ly duties in addition to their work in the fields. But the major dif¬

ficulty often stems from the indifference, if not the outrighthostility, of their men. In the most traditional regions, generally

rural, many husbands fear that literacy courses may be, for their

wives, opportunities "to meet other men", a gateway to a new¬

found feeling of superiority, or even lead them to refuse to do

manual work. In India certain religious groups and castes are op¬posed to letting women learn to read and write. In these cir¬

cumstances the wastage is considerable.

In Thailand a less direct approach has been adopted in the

fight to eradicate illiteracy. The country's Functional

Literacy and Family Planning project aims to help adults

develop an attitude of critical thinking through group

discussion techniques. Instruction in reading and writing

is seen as a by-product of this process rather than as its

main objective. Right, on the verandah of a school in

Bangkok.

12

Illiteracy among women acts as a brake on progress. Its effects

appear in many ways: in the family, where illiterate women are

handicapped in following their children's education and in

managing the household; at the economic level, since they face

difficulties in finding jobs, and in keeping them if they live in ur¬ban areas unemployment among women is twice as high as

among men; at the social level, with women playing a negligible

part in local affairs.

Apart from transforming the traditional image of women in

men's minds, a remedy must be found for defacto discrimina¬

tion in access to education and employment, as revealed in such

phenomena as the lack of women teachers, who are indispen¬

sable in the most traditional areas, the lack of adequate equip¬

ment and social measures geared to relieve women of some of

their household tasks, inequality of remuneration and

advancement.

The promotion and emancipation of women presupposes that

they receive the same education as men, rather than an education

which is limited to preparing them for the role of housewife and

mother or for certain kinds of employment which are thought to

be "suitable for women" and which always carry the least

prestige and pay: teaching, the social services, para-medical

work, the retail trade, the food and textile industries. In rural

areas women's needs for economic training are just as great as

men's in such fields as agriculture, poultry and stock-raising,

dairy farming, fishing, making and repairing fishing nets, spinn¬

ing, weaving, sewing, embroidery and other crafts which can

boost the family income. _ . . _.. . ......Le Thành Khoi

^r w}

1

fefelrto - *-*.^

V>

o ^M

©11sz

H

Demonstration of weighing with a

steelyard during a functional literacy ses¬

sion at Gounou-Gaya, Chad. The

villagers are cotton planters and need to

know how to weigh their cotton at the

annual sale of their crops.

Photo Madeleine Caillard, Unesco

Milestones to the

learning societyby Torsten Husén

TORSTEN HUSEN, ofSweden, is director of

the Institute of International Education at the

University of Stockholm. A member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, he was

chairman of the governing board of the Inter¬

national Institute for Educational Planning

from 1970 to 1980. He has been a consultant

with the Organization for Economic Co¬

operation and Development (OECD) since

1968 and is a member of the Max Planck In¬

stitute for Educational Research. He is the

author ofsome 40 books, the most recent be¬

ing The School in Question (1979), The Future

of Formal Schooling (1980) and An Incurable

Academic An Autobiography (1982).

WHAT constitutes a "mile¬

stone", or even a "revolu¬

tion", in education is, of

course, a matter of judgement. Impor¬

tant institutional changes in education do

not occur as abruptly as revolutionary

upheavals on the political and social

scene. Furthermore, it is not always easy

to distinguish lasting milestones from

ephemeral fads, such as the so-called new

mathematics, and only time can tell one

from the other. In education we can,

however, in retrospect, at certain points

in time, identify sequences of events that^

13

together constitute a change that over a

long period has had a strong impact on

the social fabric.

Looking back over a century and a half

it appears to me that one could identifyfive sets of milestones on the road to the

learning society of today. The first was

the introduction by the mid-nineteenth

century of universal primary schooling in

the northern hemisphere when legislation

on mandatory schooling was passed in

many countries. This occurred mainly

during the period 1815 to 1880. Thus,

there was some spread between

countries.

The second set of milestones marked

the gradual introduction of a common

basic school, sometimes referred to as a

comprehensive school, catering to

students from all walks of life in a given

area or community. This occurred well

into the twentieth century with the Soviet

Union and the United States taking the

lead and Western Europe trailing behind

with a more class-stratified system, par¬ticularly for the age range 10 through 15.

The third set of milestones could be

placed after 1960 and indicates the

"enrolment explosion" at all stages inboth the industrialized and non-

industrialized world. The fourth set

signals massive literacy campaigns inThird World countries and a new concep¬

tion of adult education under labels suchas life-long, permanent or recurrent

education. A fifth milestone, finally, is

represented by the entry of new

technology onto the educational scene,

something that happened after 1960.

There were certain socio-economic,ideological and political forces behindthe legislation on mandatory schooling(either mandatory attendance or man¬datory for the communities to set upschools). Important changes occurred in

the role of the family in connexion withindustrialization and the concomitant ur¬banization. There is no doubt that theneed for children to be cared for while

parents worked long hours in the fac¬

tories gave a strong impetus to the provi¬

sion of schooling. Typically, in severalEuropean countries, in rural areas wherethe children's labour at home was neededthey attended school only part-time,whereas in the urban areas they went toschool full-time. Many farmers were by

no means enthusiastic about parliamen¬tary decisions forcing them to send theirchildren to school.

Two new educational institutions

emerged in industrialized England during

the first part of the nineteenth century:the Bell-Lancaster system for providingelementary schooling (by using more ad¬vanced students as tutors) on a massive

scale with a minimum of adult teachers,and infant schools for children in the agerange 2 to 7.

A Swedish social statistician who went

to England in the early 1830s to study theinfant schools recorded his observations

in a travel report "Notes from a Journey

to England at the End of the Summer

1834". The infant schools which were

run by philanthropic organizations tookcare of the small children when their

14

parents were away for long working

hours. They taught the children certain

skills, such as very elementary reading

and arithmetic. This was, however, not

their main aim. In these schools

"children already from the age of 2 are

getting used to attentiveness, order, obe¬dience, reflection and self-initiatedactivity".

When in the 1830s child labour was

prohibited or limited by law in Britain,

children in the age range 7 to 1 2 came into

focus, and demands for their schoolingbegan to be voiced. The need for

custodial care of children in urban areas

was in the interest of several parties, such

as parents and owners of enterprises. But

it would be a serious mistake to believe

that this was the main force behind the

introduction of universal elementary

schooling. The liberal quest for universal

suffrage, for democratic participation in

the decision-making process both locally

and centrally as well as for greater equali¬

ty of opportunity was also an importantmotive for establishing a universalelementary school.

During the decade after the Second

World War, largely under the prompting

of Unesco, mass literacy teaching becamea prime task in Third World countries. Inspite of the fact that universal primaryeducation was proclaimed a top priority

for educational policy, for instance at themeeting of African Ministers of Educa¬tion in Addis Ababa in 1960, the moststriking feature of educational efforts inthe developing countries has been the

massive literacy campaigns. They are,

with the exception of the Soviet Union,

without any historical precedent in pre-literate Europe.

A characteristic of these campaigns

was the attempt to integrate literacy with

vocational skills with the aim of helping

to improve the economic plight in par¬

ticular of the small and poor farmers.But, again, as was the case in the at¬

tempts to make primary schooling

universal, the chief impetus was a strong

belief in literacy as the backbone of afunctioning democracy with the par¬

ticipation of enlightened citizens.

The demand in Europe and North

America for a common school forchildren from all kinds of homes can be

traced back to the time when legislation

was enacted introducing universal

primary schooling for "the people".Typically, the elementary school

established by law at various points in

time in some European countries was for

the next century referred to as the "peo¬

ple's school" {Volksschule, folkskold).

It was a school that reflected a highly

class-stratified society. Different types of

schools for the various social strata were

in most quarters taken for granted. For a

teachers' conference in 1881 a Swedish

conservative educator, teaching in the

classical gymnasium, published a

brochure entitled "What Direction

Should a Reform of Our Schools

Take ?". The overriding idea was that

each of the three main social classes

should have the type of school that cor¬

responded to its "needs". The generals

In the developing countries the

majority of human resources are

concentrated in rural areas where

illiteracy is prevalent and educa¬

tional facilities are meagre. Efforts

are now being made not only to

step up the facilities available but

also to encourage the child's in¬

tegration into his environment and

to introduce productive work into

the school curriculum. Right,

learning how to tend the land in a

school garden in Madagascar.

Photo Duré. Unesco

In Upper Volta 95 per cent of the

population work on the land.

Government plans to improve liv¬

ing conditions for the rural popula¬

tion include the establishment of

social centres for the education of

farm women. Right, a home

economics teacher gives a

dressmaking lesson at the centre

at Koudieré. Some of the cotton

cloth used for this activity was

provided through a Unesco Gift

Coupon scheme.

Photo Banoun/Caracciolo, FAO, Rome

elementary ("people's") school was

meant for the "working classes and the

lower classes of artisans". The grammar

school was for the upper class. What was

now needed was a third type of school for

the middle class of skilled artisans,

business men and farmers. The three

types of school should run parallel to

each other without any organizational

connexions.

Two years later in deliberate criticism

of this a young elementary school

teacher, Fridjuv Berg, who some twenty

years later became Minister of Educa¬

tion, published a brochure called "The

Elementary School as the Basic School"

in which he advocated a basic school

which would cater to children from all

walks of life.

Comprehensive versus a stratified,

selective education was a major issue in

European public policy in the years

following the Second World War. The

word "comprehensive" denoted from

the outset a secondary school which

ideally served all the students from a

given area under the same roof and of¬

fered all types of programmes, both

academic and vocational. In Europe,

with its traditionally segregated school

structure, the comprehensive school was

advocated as a replacement for the

socially and academically selective

school. The breakthrough for a com¬

prehensive conception of schooling in

Europe came after 1960.

Enrolment statistics in the twentieth

century relating to secondary and higher

education show certain striking features.

In the northern hemisphere, well into the

middle of the century, formal education

beyond a minimum (compulsory)

primary schooling was the prerogative of

a small social élite, although there was a

limited flow of academically gifted

young people from the lower classes to

schools which prepared pupils for the

universities as well as to the universities

themselves. But by and large the in¬

dustrialized countries were still what

sociologists call ascriptive societies,

where social status is more or less deter¬

mined at birth.

By the mid-twentieth century the

enrolment pattern had changed

dramatically in both industrialized and

non-industrialized countries. Both types

of countries experienced what has often

been referred to as an "educational ex¬

plosion". Since the turn of the century

enrolment in post-primary education in

most industrialized countHes increased in

a linear fashion. This had been the case

with elementary education in the

preceding century. But since 1950 the

growth in secondary and higher enrol¬

ment in these countries has, to express it

in mathematical terms, been exponential.

There are countries in which the number

of students doubled or even quadrupled

in less than ten years. Similar patterns of

growth have occurred in Third World

countries but they apply there to all

stages of the educational spectrum.

Equality of opportunity has become a

major objective for educational policy in

countries all over the world. It is a 'grow-

16

The People's Republic

of Benin is currently

creating a "New

School" system based

on the idea that each

school is a production

unit which will attempt

to pay at least 20 per

cent of its operational

budget. One of these

Unesco-supported pilot

schools is located at

the small market town

of Come. It has some

60 teachers and about

1,200 students and

owns its own grounds.

The students farm

more than eleven hec¬

tares, growing maize,

beans, cotton and fruit,

and they have set up a

co-operative to manage

the marketing of their

produce.

Photo Unesco, Paris

The Rural Production

Brigade of Shi-Ping, in

Shansi Province, is

typical of many Chi¬

nese rural commune

brigades. The leaders

of the commune are not

concerned solely with

agriculture but are also

responsible for the co¬

ordination of educa¬

tion, health, welfare

and cultural projects.

Left, members of the

Brigade at work on a

millet plantation.

Photo F. Mattioh, FAO, Rome

ing concern as the employment system

tends more and more to use formal

education as the first criterion of selec¬

tion among job seekers and as educa¬

tional achievements increasingly deter¬

mine social status. The expansion of the

number of places in further education

has led to an increase in both the absolute

and relative number of young people of

lower class background who have won

access to upper secondary and higher

education. It appears that social

background plays a less powerful role in

educational attainments in non-

industrialized than in industrialized

countries. This has been an important

factor in the expansion of post-primary

education in the developing countries.

Many developing countries have ex¬

perienced an almost explosive increase insecondary school enrolment. The finan¬

cial implications have been serious for

poor countries running schools entirely

on public funds and, with a population

structure dominated by young people.

The social structure of the enrolment

has, as indicated above, tended to

become more balanced than in the highly

industrialized countries and this in turn

has made formal education an even more

powerful vehicle of social mobility. In

other words, formal education is playing

a central role in an increasingly

meritocratic society. Educated in¬

telligence tends in our days to become the

substitute for social origin and inherited

wealth. No wonder, then, that formal

education is regarded as an almost

endless ladder up which one should try to

climb as high as possible. No stage or

level of the system tends to have a goal or

profile of its own. It is regarded merely as

a step to the next level.

Young people are keenly aware that

formal credentials in terms of schooling

are not only strategic in their life careers

but constitute the first criterion of selec¬

tion among those who enter the job

market. They are aware that unemploy¬

ment among those with a minimum of

formal education is much higher than

among those with more advanced educa¬

tion. There is much talk about the

"educated unemployed", but the fact is

that, all over the world, they find it much

more easy to obtain employment than

those with a minimum of education. The

employment statistics show that their

unemployment rate is much lower.

A fourth milestone on the way to the

learning society of today was recently

passed almost unnoticed: this was a

mushrooming growth of various forms

of adult education, not least the sudden

increase in many countries of adults "go¬

ing back to school". It appears that the

breakthrough in the industrial countries

occurred around 1970. Enrolment in for¬

mal schooling at the upper secondary and

the university level, which previously had

rarely included adults who had already

embarked on their working life, suddenly

exploded. This process was facilitated by

legislation on the right to leave of

absence for educational purposes and byfinancial support, for instance, from

pay-roll taxes.

17

The rise of adult participation in for¬

mal education is largely a phenomenon

limited to the more advanced industrial

countries where until recently adult

education, often under the aegis of

various popular movements, was

dominated by evening classes or study

circles. Education is now closely woven

into the career web of the individual in

societies where the occupational struc¬

ture and the requirements for efficient

job performance continuously change as

technology changes.

Formal education has always been a

labour-intensive enterprise. The in¬

satiable demand for teachers, particular¬

ly in developing countries, has been a

serious bottleneck which has tended to

stifle the expansion of school education.

No wonder, then, that hopes ran high

about what the new educational

technology would be able to achieve.

In the developing countries radio and

television were in the early 1960s seen as

the answer to the teacher shortage. In ad¬

dition, other forms of technology, such

as programmed learning and teaching

machines, were considered in the more

affluent parts of the world. Distance

teaching, particularly by means of radio,

proved to have a strong impact in Third

World countries suffering under the

"tyranny of distance", but it has also

been a godsend in sparsely populated

areas, such as parts of Australia. A

breakthrough in the new technology was

triggered in 1947 by the invention of the

transistor. Within a few years it revolu¬

tionized electronic equipment and

brought the small, portable radio within

the reach of almost everybody.

The most recent development in educa¬

tional technology, that might eventually

revolutionize education, is represented

by the mini-computer. All technological

devices used in education so far have

shared the drawback of allowing only for

one-way communication. You cannot

talk back to a TV-screen or a teaching

machine. The computer, however, allowsstudent feed-back and two-way com¬

munication, and the student can thus in¬

teract with the computer, both in pro¬

gramming and in the actual learning

situation; this affords him ample scope

for creativity and this in turn stimulates

his motivation to learn.

Computer-based instruction remained

an exclusive amenity of affluent societies

and their schools as long as the equip¬

ment used in the individual school or

classroom had to be connected with a

computation centre with its big and ex¬

pensive machinery. But as computers

have become increasingly compact and

prices have gone down, they have begun

to be within the means of the less affluent

countries. When and to what extent they

will be financially accessible to students

in poorer countries only time will tell.

But considering how quickly and unex¬

pectedly pocket calculators have made

their entry on the educational scene there

is reason to believe that this will occur

fairly soon.

Torsten Husén

18

1 ~"'

fcf v-t ^

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w

.

>v^

Cubahâscreated a large number of"basic secondary schools ¡jr»

the countryside where theoretical study alternates with prac¬

tical work in the fietds.and the latest audiovisual methods are

widely used. Above, studentatoffthe Isle of Youth (formerly the

Isle of Pines) at work in a citrus plantation. : '*^Ä '*

tion of .Cuba w Unesco, Pans

«

Robinson Crusoe

goes to schoolSix pioneers of modern education

by Hermann Rohrs

JEAN-JACQUES Rousseau and

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi are the

two founding fathers of a revolu¬

tion in the methods and principles of

teaching. In spite of many differences,

there seem to have been marked

similarities between the personalities of

these two Swiss thinkers, as well as a

strong affinity in the salient features of

their thought. The reason for this is that

both men drew much of their inspiration

from the philosophers of Antiquity,

especially from the Platonic idea of

education as thecornerstone of the State

and the Stoic morality of Seneca and

Cicero. This affinity can also be partly

explained in terms of the strong influence

of Rousseau's thought on the young

Pestalozzi.

The influence of Rousseau (1712-1778)

on Pestalozzi (1746-1827) can be said to

have begun in 1763 when Pestalozzi, one

of a circle of young students who belong¬

ed to the "Patriotic Leagues" in

Switzerland, took part in debates on

ideas of social reform. Rousseau's Emilehad just appeared, and this book in

which its author sets out to show how

society can be reformed through educa¬

tion was the cause of impassioned

debate. Evoking this period in his

Schwanengesang ("Swan Song") of

1826, Pestalozzi would write: "This is

why, when Emile appeared, this dream-book, utterly remote from practical con¬

cerns, aroused the enthusiasm of my

dreaming soul which was equally remote

from them."

The experience of these two great

figures in the history of education can be

summed up in a few simple words: it is

through education that man's human

potential is fulfilled in a given social con¬

text. Hence education can only succeed if

it is directed towards the reform of socie¬

ty. Both Rousseau and Pestalozzi are

thus convinced that, because of the op¬

portunity for renewal it offers, education

can make a greater contribution than a

revolution to social progress.

HERMANN ROHRS, of the FederalRepublic of Germany, is head of the depart¬

ment of education at the University ofHeidelberg and director of its research centreinto comparative education, of which he is thefounder. The most recent of his many books

on the theory and principles of education isDie Reformpàdagogik des Auslands ("Peda¬gogical Reform Abroad", 1983).

The pedagogical theories of the Swiss educational reformer Johann

Heinrich Pestalozzi (1 746-1 827) are based on his conviction that man

himself is responsible for his moral and intellectual state and that his

duty towards the community is a harmonious extension of his duty

towards himself. Pestalozzi was also one of the first proponents of the

concept of lifelong education.

Published in 1761, Emile is the great

classic of pedagogical Utopia. Reflecting

on the origin and the consequences of the

social contract in his two Discourses,

Rousseau had glimpsed the possibility of

reforming society through education.

His aim was not so much to bring about

a "return to nature" as to find a formula

which would make it possible to base

social progress on the virtues of natural

man.

For Rousseau, the ideal conditions in

which to learn how to live are those of

Robinson Crusoe on his island: facing up

to the thousand and one problems of

everyday life is an experience which

brings a rich harvest of discoveries. Only

a state of want, experienced existentially,

permits a spontaneous acquisition of

knowledge. Rousseau thus seeks to in¬

troduce a Robinson Crusoe situation into

the child's daily life, so as to create the

natural condition for the challenge of

learning which he must face on his own.

This basic idea of transposing the

situation of Robinson Crusoe into the

child's universe and into the school has

revolutionized pedagogy. It is an idea

20

which recurs in the work of Pestalozzi,

Dewey, Montessori, Makarenko and

Freinet.

The crowning notion of Pestalozzis

educational theories is that of moral

autonomy, which man acquires as, in

confrontation with the universe and its

contingencies, he comes to define his own

laws and apply them while respecting the

demands of the community.

Rousseau and Pestalozzi were the first

thinkers to assert that education is not a

phenomenon limited in space or time, but

a process lasting a lifetime through which

man becomes aware of himself and then

of his possibilities within his universe.

Following Rousseau and Pestalozzi, theleading Western educational reformer is

John Dewey (1859-1952), who had

exhaustively studied the philosophy ofKant before he came to Rousseau.

Dewey's major contribution, what might

be called his "Copernican revolution",

was to relate education directly to the

necessities of life. He developed the con¬

cept of the school as an "embryonic com¬

munity", a reflection of his ideas on theinteraction between the school and life

and the priority that should be given to

civic education. The school should be seen

as the place where the social virtues may

be acquired. The more fully it performs

this function, the better it prepares young

people for life in the wider community:

The more fully it accepts this virtually per¬

manent task by developing the critical

sense, the more substantial is its contri¬

bution to the renewal of social and com¬

munity structures.

Any change in the pedagogical institu¬

tion requires a new approach to the role

of the teacher. An attempt to promote an

exchange between the real world and the

child means that the teacher can no

longer confine himself to the narrowly

defined role of transmitter of knowledge. I

Published in 1761, £m;7e, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), is the great classic of

pedagogical Utopia. Although Rousseau wanted children to grow and develop naturally, his aim

was not so much a question of a "return to nature" as to find an educational formula which

would make it possible to base social progress on the virtues of natural man. Above, "Naturelaid out all its splendours before our eyes" reads the caption to this illustration for Emile, by

Moreau le Jeune (1741-1814).

21

assistant Helen Parkhurst, a pupil of

Dewey.

Montessori's main contribution lies in

her application to pedagogy of the fun¬

damental principles of the experimental

sciences; her objective was to provide the

discipline of teaching with a scientific

basis. This explains her concern for

rigorous planning both of teaching situa¬

tions and of teaching materials, and for

maximum precision in the observation of

results. She abolished the role of the

educator as a remote and objective

observer, and replaced it with the child's

spontaneous creativity and boundless

love. Hence there is a certain duality in

her work, in the sense that many of her

reflections and writings recall the

philosophical meditations of a Pestalozzi

rather than the clinical descriptions of a

medical doctor. This duality often gives

her writing a visionary force, but it does

not always shield it from a certain

ambiguity.

Anton Semyonovich Makarenko

(1888-1939) showed himself more revolu¬

tionary than all his predecessors in

developing an uncompromisingly

political theory of education, the goal of

which was to encourage the emergence of

a new human being, the Soviet citizen.

His theoretical writings were directly in¬

spired by his experience in work colonies,

and were a step-by-step exposition of an

already existing practice from which they

cannot be divorced. Rather like Pestaloz-

Instead he must try to act as a mediator

who asks questions and explores their im¬

plications, and who does not fail to ques¬

tion himself. This approach is strongly

reminiscent of the Socratic dialogue, and

there can be no doubt that Dewey, who

knew his Plato, always had in mind this

pedagogical model which is centred on

the idea that it is necessary to learn how

to learn and that man's destiny is to carry

on a lifelong dialogue with his

environment.

None of the great educational

reformers created a system which achiev¬

ed more success than that of Maria

Montessori (1870-1952). After observing

the behaviour of retarded children with

whom she worked as a doctor, she made

the decisive discovery, which was to

revolutionize the education of young

children, that there is a distinctive world

of childhood and that the child's

development obeys specific laws. This

discovery was to bear fruit in the

"children's houses" (Case dei bambini)

which she started in the San Lorenzo

slum district of Rome. The teaching was

centred on the needs and interests of the

children, and devised so as to take them

through the different stages of their

development which can be discerned

after careful study behind the apparent

spontaneity of their behaviour.

It is not easy to see to what extent

Montessori was influenced by Rousseau

and his theories on the natural develop¬

ment of the child, as opposed to muddled

and inexpedient dirigisme by adults.

Nevertheless, there are many echoes of

Rousseau in the passages of her work

which describe the confusion of the child

lost in an adult world in which he is not

at home and which condemns him to an

uncertain future. There is certainly no

doubt that she was influenced by such

thinkers as Dewey, the Swiss educator

Adolphe Fernere (1879-1960), and the

Belgian Ovide Decroly (1871-1932). Most

apparent are her affinities with Decroly,

also a doctor, who founded his "School

for life through life" in Brussels in 1907,

the same year in which Montessori began

her work with the "children's houses".

But above all, during a visit to the United

States in 1912, she became acquainted

with the main principles of Dewey's

pedagogical theories; her knowledge of

these was deepened by contact with her

22

Like the ancient Greeks, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that "necessity is the

mother of all the arts". For him, the ideal conditions in which to learn how to live were

those experienced by Daniel Defoe's hero Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. Only

by experiencing a state of want could a child achieve spontaneous acquisition of

knowledge. Above, an illustration for one of the earliest editions of Robinson Crusoe.

zi before him, Makarenko gathered

around him a number of children made

homeless by war and succeeded in

welding them into a community with its

own rules and discipline. A decisive stage

in his work came when the community

moved into an abandoned farm and

became the "Gorky colony" after the

writer whose life-story' deeply impressed

Makarenko.

The exemplary nature of tasks and

duties is of decisive importance in the

education of young people who have

been abandoned, but life in such a

disciplined environment is prey to a cer¬

tain monotony. Makarenko sought to

avoid this danger in his pedagogical

system, above all by what he called

"perspectives". He unhesitatingly

agreed to create an establishment for

children and adolescents in the

monastery of Kurjash near Kharkov,

where 280 orphans were installed in

derelict buildings surrounded by waste

land. After the Gorky colony had

unanimously agreed to take on this new

mission there began what Makarenko

would later refer to as the "conquest of

Kurjash" (in his The Road to Life, an

Epic of Education - Putevka v zhizu,

pedagogicheskaya poema).

The pedagogical ideas of the French

educator Célestin Freinet (1896-1966) are

no less rooted in concrete realities than

those of Makarenko, but their

The American philosopher and

educational reformer John

Dewey (1859-1952) saw the

school as an "embryonic com¬

munity". There the young

could acquire the social vir¬

tues and develop a critical

sense that would enable them

later to contribute to the

renewal of social and com¬

munity structures.

The Italian psychiatrist and educator

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) is

credited with being the first to

perceive that a child's development

obeys specific laws. The teaching

system that bears her name em¬

phasizes development of the child's

creative potential and self-

confidence.

The French educator Célestin

Freinet (1896-19661, founder of the

"new school" movement in France,

based his pedagogical methods on

allowing pupils freedom of expres¬

sion and motivating them through

the "active method". He believed

strongly in the educational potential

of the school printing press.

In the early 1920s, the Soviet social worker and educational theorist Anton Se-

myonovich Makarenko (1888-1939) established the Gorky Colony, a settlement in

which he gathered together children left orphaned and homeless in the aftermath of

war. His book The Road to Life, an Epic of Education tells how he welded them into a

community with its own self imposed rules and discipline. Above Makarenko is seen

at the centre rear of the group wearing a cap. Seated in the foreground is the writer

Maksim Gorky (1868-1936) after whom the colony was named.

pedagogical range and ambitions are far

more limited.

Freinet's starting point was an analysis

of the frustrations which he himself ex¬

perienced as a primary school teacher.

He attributed a decisive role to the school

printing press, the educational potential

of which he had appreciated at Ovide

Decroly's school in Rue de l'Hermitage

in Brussels. This "school for life through

life", made such an impression on

Freinet that he took as the slogan for his

own pedagogical concepts "The school

for life through work." This formula

neatly sums up both the practice and

theoretical meaning of Freinet's work,

which he set forth in two major works,

The Printing Press at School (1927) and

The Education of Work (1949). A

meeting with Adolphe Fernere, who had

developed a version of the school of work

in his book L'Ecole Active, enabled

Freinet to develop his ideas by relating

them more closely to methods of educa¬

tion through work.

In Freinet's work the printing press has

a central role, both as an instrument for

achieving progress through work and as a

means of communication. The pupils use

the school printing press to produce work

such as articles, reports or newsletters

which are not only educational activities

but exercises in communication with

others. They can also use the press to

print newspapers or letters to their

parents or to the community at large, or

to exchange information with other

schools as part of "interschool cor¬

respondence". Schoolwork thus loses its

rigidly didactic nature and becomes an

existential activity.

Freinet devised his own teaching

materials and opened the way for pupils,

in almost all subjects, whether in¬

dividually or in groups, to master their

own work programmes. The teaching

materials are produced on the school

printing press or at the central printing

works of the "Institut coopératif de

l'école moderne" in Cannes. The pupil's

autonomy as he confronts his respon¬

sibilities in a school life in direct contact

with life in the outside world is also

reflected in the unconventional nature of

relations between teachers and pupils and

in the group's active participation in the

conception and realization of its work,

Hermann Rohrs

23

In 1 981 , an Intergovernmental Regional Meeting, held in Quito, Ecuador, laid down three main objectives for Unesco's Major Projectin the Field of Education in the Latin American and Caribbean Region: To ensure that by 1 999 at the latest all children of school ageare provided with a minimum of 8 to 1 0 years general education; to eradicate illiteracy before the end of the century; to improvethe quality and efficiency of educational systems. Above, Colombian schoolchildren work at their reading and writing.

The education gapA hard look at the plight of the world's rural areas

by Hamidou Lailaba Maiga

SOCIAL, economic and cultural

progress is inconceivable without

the development and mastery of

knowledge, particularly scientific and

technical knowledge.

While almost 100 per cent of children

of primary school age are enrolled in

school in the industrialized countries,

where education is compulsory up to the

age of fifteen or sixteen, almost all the

developing countries are still far fromproviding universal primary education.

In the latter countries illiteracy rates are

highest in the rural areas, and in this arti¬

cle when we refer to education in rural

areas we are thinking primarily of theneeds of rural areas in the developing

world.

HAMIDOU LAILABA MAIGA, of Niger,

teaches at the University of Niamey and is

secretary-general of the African Association

of Psychology.

It would, however, be wrong to think

that all is well in the industrialized coun¬

tries. Today they find themselves con¬

fronted with many tensions between the

dynamics of education, the dynamics of

economic life and social needs. These

tensions find expression in the changes

and reforms that are sweeping through

many national education systems and

which, although they may be a sign of

Experiment and reform in education are more necessary

today than ever before. Modern experiments include in¬

terdisciplinary instruction, group dynamics, self-

teaching and pupil-run schools, like the Barbiana school

in Italy. Above all, these experiments invite the child "to

learn to learn". Right, schoolchildren in Prague taking

part in educative games.

24

Above, an Ecuadorian workman áets out on the road to literacy. He is just one of the millions of people throughout the world who

are demanding the education which is their right. It was to help Member States meet this explosive demand that, in 1963, Unesco

established the International Institute for Educational Planning whose aim is to contribute to the development of education by pro¬

viding a centre for advanced training, and research in the field of educational planning.

W .^/^^^^¡Jf "'

» m^A ' «ST...>!

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v±

r.>

f

M»,

"¡?«C

| ^^^HHI 1

The expansion of education systems

in recent years has made great

demands on material, financial and

human resources. In the world as a

whole, the percentage of gross na¬

tional product allotted to State educa¬

tion rose from 3.7 per cent in 1 960 to

5.6 per cent in 1979. In the develop¬

ing countries alone, the number of

teachers rose from 4,720,000 in

1960 to 14,375,000 in 1980. Left, a

primary school classroom in Niger.

Photo © Claude Sauvageot, Paris

vitality, are in the great majority of cases

an indication that the systems in question

are not working well.

If a country such as France has granted

certain of its sub-regions the status of

"educational priority zones", it is

because regional and zonal inequalities

have been identified; the reduction of

these inequalities calls for urgent

measures. It is not surprising that all

these educational priority zones are in

rural areas. Think of the situation in the

rural areas of developing countries, the

overwhelming majority of which are still

unable to provide the necessary

minimum, universal primary education!

Think of the situation in countries pro¬

viding an education unadapted to their

cultural needs and dispensed in a foreign

language spoken in some cases by less

than 1 0 per cent of the population ! As far

as the provision and quality of education

are concerned, I feel it is no exaggeration

to say that some Third World countries

are suffering from a grievous handicap.

There is no point in repeating here

what has been said by specialists, interna¬

tional organizations and research in¬

stitutes which have produced incisive

analyses of the situation, to demonstrate .

the bankruptcy of educational systems in

the developing countries both in terms of

their internal and external efficiency. Let

us simply remember that school wastage

has become virtually endemic and that

school systems are incapable of pro¬

viding training to meet the needs of real

development.

Even a cursory look at social and

economic conditions in the rural areas of

developing countries shows that these

areas are facing many handicaps: lack of

infrastructures; populations living in ab¬

solute poverty and deprived of the fruits

of their labour; an education unsuited to

the on-the-ground situation and cultural

values; low productivity of work con¬

trasting with a high expenditure of

physical effort; illiteracy. The economic,

physical and cultural possibilities are so

limited by this combination of factors

that access to school and consequently to

knowledge is difficult. Malnourished,

physically wasted children, sometimes

walking long distances to school, can on¬

ly reap a meagre benefit from an educa¬

tion which is hermetic because it is not

adapted to their culture, and which en¬

courages competition to the detriment of

co-operation.

Examination of the growth of Gross

National Product (GNP) in different sec¬

tors of activity shows that growth in the

services sector and (in the last few years)

in industry has varied between 6 and 14

per cent while growth in the agricultural

sector has oscillated between 1 and 2.5

per cent.

The author of this analysis, the French

specialist on education for rural develop¬

ment Guy-José Bretones, points out that

these figures indicate "stagnating living

conditions" for the rural populations

which nevertheless constitute the biggest

proportion of the working population of

developing countries. This is clearly "a

considerable brake" on economic activi¬

ty and a major handicap for develop-

27

ment. As the Nobel Prizewinning

economist Sir Arthur Lewis has said: "if

agriculture is in the doldrums, it only of¬

fers a stagnating market and impedes the

development of the rest of the economy.

If you fail to develop agriculture to a suf¬

ficient extent, it becomes more difficult

to develop anything else. This is the basic

principle of 'balanced growth'."

Noted economists point out that "the

improvement of human potential (educa¬

tion, training, health care)" and the

transmission of knowledge and technical

skills are far more important factors in

increasing GNP than the quantitative in¬

crease in capital and manpower. Mean¬

while, the way in which GNP is divided

up is one of the factors which conditions

development; research plays an equally

important role. The increase in a coun¬

try's income is due first and foremost to

the updating of its people's productive

potential, the development of its human

resources, rather than "the accumulation

of material goods".

In the developing countries, the over¬

whelming majority of these human

resources are concentrated in rural areas

and especially in the agricultural sector.

Depending on the country, between 45

and 80 per cent of the working popula¬

tion may be involved in agriculture. With

the exception of countries such as Cuba

and Somalia which have eradicated il¬

literacy in record time, this mass of pro¬

ducers is almost totally illiterate. Il¬

literacy is particularly prevalent in the

forty-to-sixty age range, among those

who take the decisions in rural areas.

Apart from any moral or philosophical

considerations, therefore, in developing

countries, and especially in those where

agricultural production makes the big¬

gest contribution to GNP, growth of na¬

tional income and profitability of educa¬

tional costs must be based on the defini¬

tion of new educational objectives which

will attach great importance to the im¬

provement of living conditions, produc¬

tion conditions and productive tech¬

niques in the rural world. Among the im¬

plications of this are the development of

education, both in terms of quantity and

quality, and notably the establishment in

rural areas of training structures best

suited to meet the real needs of the

populations and their emancipation.

Immediately after achieving in¬

dependence, the great majority of

formerly colonized countries made a

major effort to improve the supply of

education. The Addis Ababa Declaration

(1961) is a good illustration of the way

many African countries pursued this ob¬

jective. However, the priority given to

"quantitative development" was to ag¬

gravate the various disparities and forms

of discrimination which had been in¬

herited from the colonial era (disparities

between regions, inequalities between

cities and rural areas, inequality between

the sexes, etc.). In the former French col¬

onies in Africa, although the "symbol"

disappeared, African languages were still

not taught in the schools (as is still the

case in many of these countries). In

general, the variance between school pro¬grammes and local cultures and en-

28

vironments still creates and perpetuates

enormous problems of adaptation, learn¬

ing, and intellectual development. In

such conditions failure is hardly

surprising.

And so innovation appeared to be

essential. In practice it has taken three

main directions: the ruralization of

education; out-of-school training with a

rural orientation; and the integration of

productive work and in-school

education.

Niger and Cameroon each constitute

typical cases of ruralization of education.

In 1967 each of these countries asked the

United Nations Development Pro¬

gramme (UNDP) to help them finance a

college of education for training primary

school teachers for rural areas. Since the

teaching inherited from colonial times

had proved a failure, it seemed necessary

to train a new kind of primary school

teacher who could promote economic

development at village level. The teacher

training course lasted three years. In ad¬

dition to instruction in teaching methods

and practice, the courses included

sociology, child psychology, pedagogy,

technology, and a basic knowledge of

animal husbandry and farming. At the

end of the training period, the teacher

was to be equipped to look for the con¬

tent of his teaching in the local environ

ment. This teaching should be integrated,

by means of the study of the

environment.

Ruralized primary education, it is

hoped, will halt the exodus from the

countryside by encouraging the child's

integration into his environment, notably

by making him capable of "acting on it,

mastering it, transforming it and

developing it."

Neither in Niger nor in Cameroon does

the project for the ruralization of educa¬

tion seem to have met the expectations of

its promoters.

Out-of-school training with a rural

orientation is targeted at young people in

rural areas. It provides them with a

grounding in agricultural techniques

which are traditionally unknown in their

locality. The objective is to increase pro¬

ductivity and foster the economic

development of rural areas. Specifically

technical training is generally combined

with literacy courses and instruction in

elementary management techniques and

home economics. Experiments of this

kind are today being carried out in

several Third World countries, with vary¬

ing results. Tanzania, Niger, Mali and

Upper Volta are some of the African

countries concerned, and the case of Up¬

per Volta has attracted particular in-

The right to education has long been accepted as being one of

the basic human rights, but only in comparatively recent years

has it been recognized that this right encompasses lifelong

education extending throughout adult life. More and more

retired people are "going back to school" in order to pursue in¬

terests they were unable to satisfy during their active lives.

Above, a course in a "university of the third age", in the Ger¬

man Democratic Republic.

Education has become a powerful vehicle of social mobility,

with higher educational qualifications becoming more impor¬

tant than social origin and inherited wealth. Yet a multiplicity of

diplomas is not an end in itself and it is important that the con¬

tent of higher education be designed to meet the real needs of

society as a whole. Right, massed ranks of students taking an

examination in a sports stadium in Djakarta, Indonesia.

terest, notably in the Groupements post¬

scolaires (post-school groupings).

Post-school groupings have a dual pur¬pose; they aim to train young farmers

capable of innovating and setting up self-

administered co-operatives, and also to

encourage the participation of the village

community as a whole. The originality of

the approach is that it attempts to adapt

a traditional association of young peo¬

ple, the nam, to the needs of the village

today.

The purpose of integration of formal

education and productive work is to form

a link between training and production

within the context of formal education.

Many kinds of experiment are being car¬

ried out in this field; that of the "basic

secondary school in the countryside",

launched in Cuba a few years ago, seems

promising. According to a French jour¬

nalist, Bernard Cassen, "each basic

secondary school in the countryside is set

in the midst of some 500 hectares of land

for which it is responsible. Depending on

the region, the schools produce citrus

fruits, coffee, tobacco, fruit, or

vegetables. Each school has some 500

pupils of both sexes... The pupils alter¬

nate between work in the fields in the

morning and in the school in the after¬

noon, and vice versa." According to

evidence cited by Cassen, the results in

both agricultural production and school

performance are extremely encouraging.

Proposals for reform are not usually

based on a critical approach which calls

into question those contradictions which

objectively constitute the severest han¬dicaps for the society in question. Theprime target is the rural world, which is

usually said to harbour the potential

causes of failure. Attention is often

drawn to the rural world's resistance to

change, and particularly the resistance of

the old, who possess the powers of

decision.

This resistance is real, but is it a major

handicap? How can the rural world ob¬

jectively and subjectively go along with a

process of innovation conceived

elsewhere by a privileged minority whose

privileges weigh heavily on rural pro¬

ducers and their families? Can these pro¬

ducers modernize their farming tech¬

niques? Have they the means to do so inan economy where the domination of the

great landed proprietors, the urban mid¬

dle class and a host of middlemen is in

process of turning them into a "rural

proletariat"? Are those who most

systematically deplore peasant conser¬

vatism always prepared to abandon cer¬

tain of their privileges for the sake of a

more equitable distribution of the na¬

tional income? Are not those who profit

objectively from the fact that education

is ill-adapted to needs more conservative

than the villagers? The deterioration of

terms of trade to the detriment of the

raw-material exporting countries hits the

rural world first and hardest.

Many obstacles also exist in the field of

cultural and administrative policies. It is,for example, impossible for a schoolwhich does not use the language of the

community in which it is established to be

a part of that community.

The problem of rural development

should not be formulated simply in terms

of increased productivity or production

in the agricultural sector alone. The

problem should be set against a wider

background including such measures as

the massive transfer of capital from the

cities to the countryside, the establish¬

ment of industrial units in the rural areas,

a national policy for the development of

scientific and technological research at

every level, the supervision and develop¬

ment of natural resources, the promotionof national languages and cultures, the

growth of the capacity for training and

information through use of the mass

media, respect for liberties and a policy

of genuine national development instead

of the development of minority privileges

and dependence.

Hamidou Lailaba Maiga

WXï+

fe \Eà *

The media

in the classroomby Michel Souchon

THE world is experiencing an

information and communication

explosion of such magnitude that

it is already being predicted that the post-

industrial society will be a "communica¬

tion society". Alongside the established

media (radio, cinema, over-the-air televi¬

sion), complementing them and widening

their scope, we now have sound and vi¬

sion recording and reproducing devices

MICHEL SOUCHON, of France, is head ofthe study group on communication systems at

France's National Institute of AudiovisualCommunication. He has been a Unesco con¬sultant on several occasions, and is the authorof several works on the sociology of themedia, including Trois Semaines de Télévi¬

sion, Une Comparaison Internationale("Three Weeks of Television, an Interna¬tional Comparison").

More human in scale and more flexible

than centralized radio and television

systems, since they lend themselves to

direct intervention by both students and

teachers (slowing down a lesson, repeti¬

tion of certain passages, the recording of

local events), audio-visual materials such

as tape-recorders, video-recorders and

cassettes hold great promise as a means

of meeting rapidly increasing educational

demands throughout the world. Above

left, members of a women's literacy

class at DaoudaboUgou, Mali, record

their feelings about their new-found

reading and writing skills. Left, villagers

at Kabala, Mali, watch a videotape about

the women's co-operative they have

recently organized in their village to im¬

prove agricultural production.

(tape recorders, video recorders, video

disc players), direct broadcast satellites,cable television and the whole range of

equipment and services that have come tobe known as telematics.

What changes will these new

technologies bring? Direct broadcasting

by satellite will enable countries not yet

equipped with television systems to avoid

the heavy cost of installing ground net¬

works. It will also mean an increase in

transborder flow of programmes and the

possibility of receiving broadcasts from

other countries. Television signals from

satellites will be received through special

individual aerials or through collective

antennae serving cable networks.

Cable television services will have the

advantage that, unlike over-the-air

television transmissions, they will not be

limited by frequency overcrowding and

will therefore be able to offer the viewer

a much larger range of programmes.

When optical fibres, which are now

beginning to replace coaxial cables, come

into more general use, it will be possible

to establish "interacting" systems, that is

systems through which the viewing au¬

dience will be able to enter into a dialogue

with the broadcasters and thus par¬

ticipate actively in programmes.

The television set will thus no longer be

merely a means of viewing a limited

range of programmes; it will become the

central core of an array of equipment and

services that is becoming known collec¬

tively as "peritelevision". It will be

possible to record programmes for view¬

ing at a time convenient to the viewer, to

watch programmes pre-recorded on

video cassettes and video discs, and to

view films taken by the viewer himself

with his personal video camera. It will

also be possible to call up on the tele¬

vision screen information supplied from

data banks through the telephone

networks.

This prodigious leap forward in the

field of mass communications, the

multiplication of channels and suppor¬

ting equipment, once again gives rise to

great hopes for education. It is as though

there were a sort of "pre-ordained" con¬

vergence between the possibilities offered

by these new technologies and the enor¬

mous growth in educational demand.

The mass media have the capacity to

meet the demands of the rapidly rising

numbers of those requiring education.

They can disseminate an educational pro¬

gramme to millions of people, they can

call on the services of the finest specialists

available on any of the disciplines it may

be thought necessary to incorporate into

educational syllabuses, they have access

to data banks that are always kept up to

date, and they can produce, stock,

classify and distribute audiovisual pro¬

ducts geared to the needs of both teachers

and students. Even the problems raised

by the economic inequalities in the world

seem capable of resolution; for although

the production of radio and television

programmes for schools may at first

sight appear costly, the number of

students reached means that the cost per

student is extremely low. Finally, the

flexibility of the new media and the in¬

teractive . capacity of the more

sophisticated systems meet the objections

that have been raised concerning the

rigidity and constraints of the traditional

mass media.

Nevertheless, it is advisable to guard

against excessive optimism. To begin

with, the new technologies are not

developing at the same pace everywhere.Whereas in California, for example, with

cable and satellite television, there aresome fifty television channels available

to viewers and the per capita ownership

of video cameras and video recorders is

one of the highest in the world, many

African countries have no television at

all, or if they do it serves only the capital

city and an area of about thirty

kilometres in radius around it.

To the problem of the uneven distri¬

bution of equipment must be added the

disparities to be found in programme

production capacity. Few countries

possess film and television production in¬

dustries capable of supplying the interna¬

tional market. The elaboration of soft¬

ware for computer-assisted teaching, the

production of audiovisual educational

programmes and the establishment of

textual or audiovisual data banks all re¬

quire heavy investment which only rich

countries are able to afford.

International exchanges (the buying,

selling and co-production of films and

programmes) will develop, but the in-^

31

Although at first sight costly to produce, educational television programmes, which can reach millions of viewers, have an extremely

low cost-per-student ratio. Their added visual impact, evident on the faces of these Panamanian schoolchildren, makes educational

television broadcasting an invaluable teacher's aid.

As microcomputers become more compact and less expensive they are

gradually invading the classrooms of the world. Children are strongly

motivated by the instant response they can obtain from the computer

and the dialogue they can establish with it, but it is essential to ensure

that the educational software devised for use in schools is shaped to

take into account differing .human values and needs. Above, children at

work with computers in a school in the Azerbaijan SSR.

32

equalities will remain with all the risks

that this implies. The primary influence

of foreign productions on national pro¬

ducers, on whom are imposed models of

international commercial success, is pro¬

bably just as important as the secondary

influence these productions will have on

viewers by their portrayal implicit in

fictional works and more explicit in news

and documentaries of certain stereo¬

types, models, norms and values.

This inequality of communication

resources may well actually widen the gap

between nations. Resources are seldom

available where educational needs are

greatest. A number of factors may fur¬

ther increase these inequalities: the abun¬

dant means available in the affluent

countries will tend further to improve the

education of the affluent; in the poorer

countries, the continuing poverty of the

mass media and the inertia of their

organizational structures tends to add to

the built-in rigidity of what is still a one¬

way technology; the newer media, at least

in theory, are more information

oriented, more geared to the transmis¬

sion of knowledge, whereas the older

media (cinema, radio and television),

which for some time to come, will pro¬

bably be the only media accessible to the

developing countries where educational

needs are greatest, are much more

oriented towards entertainment.

It might be wise to pause at this point

and consider the two major trends in

modern pedagogy. The first is the trend

towards rationalization, which stresses

the technical aspects of teaching (goal-

oriented learning, programmed teaching,

etc.). The second emphasizes the need to

take into account the personal motiva-

tion of the pupil (non-directive

pedagogy, the freedom to learn, etc.).

Both these tendencies reject intensive use

of the mass media to saturate entire

regions with educational programmes,

much as vast areas of agricultural land

are sprayed with crop fertilizer.

The rationalist tendency insists on

strict adaptation of pedagogical means to

precise objectives and on the imperative

need to verify the results of the teaching

process at every stage. If we examine

both the older and the newer media to

find which of them best meet these

demands we find ourselves obliged to

eliminate traditional radio and television

in favour of more flexible technologies

(records or sound cassettes, video discs or

video cassettes, interactive teletext

systems, etc.) which allow direct in¬

tervention in the classroom itself

slowing down or speeding up the pace of

a lesson or interrupting it so as to be able

to repeat certain passages.

Non-directive pedagogy insists that, in

education, only those things that the per¬

sonal interest of the student incites him to

discover for himself are properly

assimilated. To aid the student in this ap¬

proach he must be given the material

from which to draw his own conclusions.

The role of the teacher here is to en¬

courage the emergence of latent ability

rather than to be a fount of knowledge

which he dispenses in a manner which he

alone decides. This approach requires

primarily that use be made of audiovisual

archives (slide shows, with sound tracks,

films, sound cassettes and records, video

cassettes and video discs) that can be con¬

sulted at documentation centres.

Whatever the approach adopted, the

preference in the educational field goes to

the new and up-and-coming media which

offer greater flexibility, including the

possibility of on-the-spot consultation of

sources and more personalized use, in

other words, media that are likely to

spread only slowly to the developing

countries or to underprivileged areas and

sectors in the industrialized countries.

All this suggests a somewhat pessimis¬

tic outlook for the future relations bet¬

ween teaching and the media, or, to be

more precise, for the future of those rela¬

tions in the least favoured countries.

However, results of experiments in a less

intensive, more selective use of the media

give grounds for a measure of optimism.

In Latin America, for example, radio

schools have played an important part in

literacy and "conscientization" cam¬

paigns, as have mobile cinemas in India.

Such experiments have shown that

messages transmitted by the media can be

effective if they are adapted for use on a

more human scale.

It seems clear that technology is evolv¬

ing along two distinct lines, one leading

to the use of massive means of diffusion

(satellites that cover entire continents),

the other to more decentralized localsystems of distribution and the use of

individual means of recording or stock

ing audiovisual material.

If these two approaches are regarded

as being antagonistic, two irreconcilable

audiovisual worlds will emerge. But it is

still possible to hope that they will be seen

as being complementary to each other,

together providing more flexible services

than are offered by the rigid mass media

of today. These flexible services would

certainly be of great educational value.

Education satellites are a case in point.

Used to disseminate complete educa¬

tional programmes, designed and

packaged by cumbersome, distant in¬

stitutions, they would certainly prove to

be ineffective. This would not be the

case, however, if they were to be used as

"carriers" relaying short extracts that

could be received, stocked and made

available to teachers who could then use

them as they saw fit to illustrate their

lessons or for demonstration purposes.

When we consider 'the more negative

aspects of the media (their predominant¬

ly entertainment role, the inequality of

communication resources, the inertia of

old habits), we see a future in which the

schools and the media are cast as com¬

petitors and rivals, having only an obli¬

que contact and influence on each other.

The hope for a less bleak future lies,

perhaps, in experiments in more decen¬

tralized use of the mass means of com¬

munication leading to a more

tive collaboration between the schools

and the media.

Michel Souchon

School is the gateway to the future, and schooldays a time when everything still seems possible. Tomorrow's hopes and today's

realities are symbolized in this photo of an open-air classroom in a Third World country where the first pupils to arrive wait pensively

for the day's lessons to begin.

1if *

1

^B

2Ä

\»

A Unesco first traditional

music on a compact, laser-read disc IB f?

bart of Unesco's programme for

conservation of the world's

sical heritage, the International

sic Council presents the first

ligital recording in the Unesco collec-

n of recordings of traditional music

to be made on one of the new laser-

read, compact discs. This constitutes

a breakthrough which marks the first

step in the compilation of long-life

digital archives for the safeguard and

dissemination of traditional music

from all over the world. This re¬

cording, entitled Ayarachi and

Chiriguano, is of the pre-Columbian

music of the Quechua and Aymara In¬

dians of Peru. The recording was

ade in Quechua and Aymara corn-

unities in the region of Lake Titicaca

ring a mission undertaken by the In-

ational Institute for Comparative

c Studies and Documentation,

in 1981.

The development of the digital

APPEAL TO INSTITUTIONS

AND INDIVIDUALS

If you possess unpublished record¬

ings of the traditional music of your

region, or if you have any information

concerning such recordings, please

contact the International Music Coun¬

cil, 1 Rue Miollis, 75732, Paris Cedex

15, France.

RECENT UNESCO RELEASES

In the Musical

cassette):

CSM 012

Sources series (on

Traditional Music of South¬

ern Laos

CSM 016 : Aka Pygmy Music

CSM 029 : O-Suwa-Daiko Japanese

Drums

compact disc read by laser beam has

opened up new vistas for the world of

music and for the safeguaüdissemination and storage of

world's heritage of traditional mus

Compact discs have a level of sour

quality indistinguishable from that ol

the original master recording; they are

not subject to damage by scratching!

since they are read by laser beam]

rather than by mechanical means;

capable of holding one hour of con¬

tinuous music on a disc 12 cm. in

diameter, they will enable exhaustive]archives to be stored in a small spaceJand present none of the well-nigh in/superable problems of preservation

associated with magnetic recordingj

The most important immediate objj

tive must therefore be the trans,

without delay, to digital cor

discs of existing recordings

musical works most represeryfl

the world's musical heritac

CSM 034 : Aboriginal Music from Aus¬

tralia

CSM 036 : Inuit Games and Songs,

Canada

CSM 038 : Iqa'at Iraqi Traditional

Rhythmic Structures

In the Digital Archives for Traditional

Music series:

Digital Compact Disc

DCP 1: Peru, Ayarachi and Chiriguano

(With 20-page booklet with maps and

photos.)

These recordings are available from The

Unesco Bookshop at Unesco head¬

quarters, Paris, or by correspondence

from G.R.E.M., 22 Rue de la République,

94160 Saint-Mandé, France

Aga Khan University

inaugurated in Karachi

In a ceremony held in Karachi on

March 1 6, the Aga Khan, spiritual leader

of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, receiv¬

ed from Pakistan President General

Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq the charter of the

new Aga Khan University. Some 10,000

spectators attended the ceremony which

took place on the site of the new

721 -bed teaching hospital which will

provide clinical training facilities for the

Medical College and School of Nursing

located on the same 34-hectare site and

which together constitute the Health

Sciences Faculty of the new university.

When the hospital becomes fully opera¬

tional in 1 984 it will be the focal point of

a network of over 120 affiliated health

centres run by the Aga Khan Foundation

throughout Pakistan. Through its in¬

novative department of community

medicine the new faculty, which is open

to students who qualify academically,

regardless of race, religion or sex, will

prepare future health professionals for

work at the community level in both ur¬

ban and rural areas. The Aga Khan

University plans to establish other

faculties both in Pakistan and other coun¬

tries. It will be dedicated to the establish¬

ment and maintenance of a high standard

of education and will be oriented towards

addressing problems of particular

relevance to the Third World.

The UNESCO COURIER is published monthly.

Individual articles and photographs not copyrighted

may be reprinted providing the credit line reads

"Reprinted from the UNESCO COURIER", plus date

of issue, and three voucher copies are sent to the

editor. Signed articles reprinted must bear author's

name. Non-copyright photos will be supplied on re¬

quest. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be returned

unless accompanied by an international reply

coupon covering postage. Signed articles express

the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily

represent the opinions of UNESCO or those of the

editors of the UNESCO COURIER. Photo captions

and headlines are written by the Unesco Courier

staff.

The Unesco Courier is produced in microform

(microfilm and/or microfiche) by: (1) University

Microfilms (Xerox). Ann Arbor. Michigan 48100,

U.S.A.: (Z) N.C.R. Microcard Edition, Indian Head,

Inc., 111 West 40th Street, New York, U.S.A.; (3)

Bell and Howell Co.. Old Mansfield Road, Wooster,

Ohio 44691, U.S.A.

Assistant Editor-in-chief: Olga Rodel

Managing Editor: Gillian Whitcomb

Editors:

English: Howard Brabyn (Paris)

French: Alain Lévêque (Paris)

Spanish: Francisco Fernandez-Santos (Paris)

Russian: Nikolai Kuznetsov (Paris)

Arabic: Sayed Osman (Paris)

German: Werner Merkli (Berne)

Japanese: Kazuo Akao (Tokyo)

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Hindi: Krishna Gopal (Delhi)

Tamil: M. Mohammed Mustafa (Madras)

Hebrew: Alexander Broîdo (Tel Aviv)

Persian: Mohammed Reza Berenji (Teheran)

Dutch: Paul Morren (Antwerp)

Portuguese: Benedicto Silva (Rio de Janeiro)

Turkish: Mefra llgazer (Istambul) >

Urdu: Hakim Mohammed Said (Karachi)

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(Dar-es-Salam)

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vene: Punisa Pavlovic (Belgrade)

Chinese: Shen Guofen (Pekín)

Bulgarian: Pavel Pissarev (Sofia)

Assistant Editors:

English Edition: Roy Malkin

French Edition:

Spanish Edition: Jorge Enrique Adoum

Research: Christiane Boucher

Illustrations: Ariane Bailey

Layout and Design: Robert Jacquemin

Promotion: Fernando Ainsa

All correspondence should be addressed to the

Editor-in-Chief in Paris.

34

Just published

The New Unesco Source Book for Geography

Teaching contains practical suggestions and in¬

formation on ways of improving strategies and

methods of geography teaching at both primary

and secondary school levels. The book examines

such issues as the aims and value of geographical

education, mental development and the learning

process, teaching and learning strategies and

techniques, resource material, course planning

and evaluation. It supersedes the Unesco Source

Book for Geography Teaching, published in

1965, which has been out of print for a number

of years. This entirely new volume reflects the

conceptual revolution that has taken place in

geography teaching in the past decade.

New

Unesco _

Source^Book

Geography

Teaching

Edited by Norman J. Graves, Chairman of the Com¬

mission on Geographical Education of the Interna¬

tional Geographical Union, 1972-1980.

Co-published with Longman Ltd., who have ex¬

clusive sales rights in the UK.Longman/Tiie Unesco Press

394 pages ISBN 92-3-101935-X 60 French francs

Where to renew your subscriptionand place your order for other Unesco publications

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UNITED STATES. Unipub, 345 Park Avenue South, New

York, N.Y. 10010. - U.S.S.R. Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga,

Moscow, G-200. - YUGOSLAVIA. Mladost, llica 30/11,

Zagreb, Cankarjeva Zalozba, Zopitarjeva 2, Lubljana, Nolit, Terazi-

je 27/11, Belgrade. - ZIMBABWE. Textbook Sales (PVT) Ltd ,

67 Union Avenue, Harare.

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A literacy class on the banks of the Blue Nile,

Ethiopia. In 1979 Ethiopia launched a nation-wide

campaign to eliminate illiteracy. The following

year, in recognition of the success of the cam¬

paign, Unesco awarded Ethiopia the literacy prize

of the International Reading Association.

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Photo Dominique Roger, Unesco

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