Why (not) associate the principle of inclusion with disability? Tracing connections from the start of the ‘Salamanca Process’

This article reflects on changes in the disability-related educational approach of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), specifically investigating the context UNESCO's Special Needs Education unit was embedded in while following up the ‘World Conference on Special Needs Education’ that was held in Salamanca 20 years ago. The paper starts with the observations that first education for all and inclusive education are currently as education themes of UNESCO quite similar in terms of their scope and rationale. Second, although debates on inclusive education have been fuelled in context with the UN-‘Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, disability plays a less important role in UNESCO's programme spectrum, compared to some decades ago. Drawing from a study on institutions and knowledge analysing shifts in meanings of inclusive education, the recent tautology of themes is interpreted in connection with changes of UNESCO's approach to special needs education after 1994 and as consequence of shifts occurring back then in perceptions about the goals of UNESCO programmes. Borrowing from Organisation Studies, the article highlights conceptual changes in UNESCO's programmes, from traditional special (needs) education to inclusive education. Data used have been collected in the archives of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Method of the interpretive inquiry is in-depth content analysis.     

Promoting Clean Technology Through the Use of Multimedia Learning Material in Environmental Engineering

Since the UNCED Conference in Rio de Janeiro, 1992, it has been realized that cleaning up the environment requires a consolidated effort on the part of engineers and technologists to adhere to codes of clean technology. Future engineers should be educated to be well aware of the impact of anthropogenic action and technology in a changing environment. The greenhouse effect, the ozone layer, global warming and hazardous waste will be influenced to a great extent by future engineers and technologists who are the future managers of the planet. This is why UNESCO's multimedia learning materials in engineering for the education of engineers in promotion of clean technology are crucial at this time.     

Continuously reaffirmed,subtly accommodated,obviously missing and fallaciously critiqued: ideologies in UNESCO's lifelong learning policy

Although the lifelong learning policy of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has had a unique impact on international discussions over the last four decades, little historical research has revealed the ideological influences at work within UNESCO's lifelong learning policy texts. With this in mind, this paper exposes the authoritative and marginal ideological influences within UNESCO's lifelong learning policy during the period between the 1990s and the early 2000s. Specifically, this research's analysis reveals that while social democratic liberalism as a dominant ideology was continuously reaffirmed in UNESCO's lifelong learning policy texts during the period, neoliberal stances were also subtly accommodated and radical social democrats' ideas missing in its recent lifelong learning policy texts. Furthermore, UNESCO's lifelong learning was fallaciously critiqued as being opposed to another global development agendum, education for all (EFA). Implications for realising good policy and global justice in conditions dominated by neoliberal capitalism are discussed in depth.     

Restructuring UNESCO's statistical services—The “sad story” of UNESCO's education statistics: 4 years later

Criticism directed at the quality of UNESCO's education statistics led to the recent restructuring of the Organization's statistical services. This criticism, primarily supported by the World Bank and subsequently confirmed by consultants engaged by UNESCO, does not prove to be completely justified. In fact, a change in the political orientation of the statistical program appears to have been the main goal of the reform. Providing few significant (or new) recommendations to improve the other dimensions of data quality, the consultants’ reports essentially concentrated on the need for measuring and comparing educational systems’ performances in a strongly competitive world economy. While UNESCO's General Conference did not discuss the political aspects of the reform, the restructuring can be tied to UNESCO's loss of leadership to other international agencies, which have come to produce their own statistics and recommendations on education.     

“Strong,Independent, Able to Learn More …”: Inclusion and the construction of school students in Iceland as diagnosable subjects

This paper deals with the way the vision of including children with special educational needs into their home school, constituted for instance in UNESCO's The Salamanca Statement and Framework on Special Needs Education, has merged with other contemporary discourses (ideas and practices) in Icelandic education. In particular, the paper focuses on the historical conjuncture of inclusion politics, individualism, a technological approach to education, and market ideology and practices in Icelandic education. These approaches are analysed as discursive patterns of legitimating principles functioning in Icelandic education at the beginning of the twenty-first century.     

Towards Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE): Developing the ‘Roadmap for the Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs in Vocational Education and Workplace Settings’

Twenty years after UNESCO's Salamanca Statement enshrined international action for provision for children, youth and adults with special educational needs within the regular educational system, this article presents the current underpinning international and national UK context for developing inclusion in vocational education and training and workplace settings. This context is explored through the justification for developing an EU‐funded project entitled ‘Towards Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE)’ and the creation of an associated audit tool, the ′Roadmap for Inclusion′, by a partnership group consisting of universities and VET settings from Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and England.     

Imagining a transformed UNESCO with learning at its core

This paper argues that key aspects of UNESCO's organizational culture are a major impediment to the realization of its important educational agenda. Drawing upon sustained observations over a four-year period, the paper describes the nature and consequences of UNESCO's highly ritualized and ‘inward-oriented’ work activities, especially the weak links between what happens at Headquarters and the realities on the ground in formal and non-formal educational frameworks worldwide. By establishing a more open, interactive and egalitarian organizational milieu, focused on collaborative learning and knowledge creation, accumulation and dissemination, this paper argues that these linkages can be tightened. A genuine learning-oriented culture at UNESCO would encourage professional empowerment, independent thinking, human resource development, greater dialogue and critical debate, and the creation and dissemination of quality publications. Thus, for UNESCO to regain its leadership role in the education world and effectively serve as a broker of innovative ideas and effective programs, it must overcome the stultifying tendencies of its current organizational culture and find ways to develop dynamic learning cultures both from without and from within.     

International work in early childhood education: a UNESCO perspective

After defining UNESCO's place in the United Nations system, the author outlines the new situation that has arisen in recent years for the world's children. Although infant mortality rates continue to give concern, the major problem that international organisations have now to face is not the question of children's survival but their development. Research shows that the vital age for developmental inputs is early childhood, without which the chances of later learning achievement are severely diminished. The proposed ECD Programming Model attempts to take into account present research on early child development as well as the socio‐economic context of developing countries, where governments are increasingly unable to provide basic services.     

Professional Development Skills for Civil and Environmental Engineers

This paper gives a historical review of the events which have given rise to the need for an undergraduate course module for civil and environmental engineers in ‘professional development skills’ (PDS). A framework is proposed for PDS which integrates the best of existing programmes with new material relevant to the needs of tomorrow's engineers.     

Learning to Deal with Social Factors as a Goal in the Education of Engineers

One of the challenges engineers face is how to deal with the combination of scientific‐technological and social factors in the development and implementation of new technologies. To prepare student engineers for this there are two options: (a) train a special type of engineer, who has had a combination of engineering and social science courses; and (b) teach the ‘normal’ engineers to get a good feeling for the relevance of social factors to their work. Both types of training are offered at the Eindhoven University of Technology. In this article, we describe the results of a study into the way student engineers in their master's thesis struggle with the integration of social factors in their engineering work. A programme of guidelines for doing this in a more sophisticated way has been developed on the basis of these experiences and of literature in the field of technology assessment and design methodology.     

Globalisation and the UNESCO mandate: multilateral prospects for educational development

UNESCO is analysed in terms of the challenges brought to it by globalisation. In particular, the `logic' of internationalism and its expression after World War Two as functional multilateralism are seen to be under serious challenge from a potential fragmentation of world order. Changes in the character of nation-states and the consequences for structured collaboration between and among them force questions to be posed concerning UNESCO's role in global educational development. An examination of the origins and early constitutional mandate of UNESCO provides opportunity to explore patterns whereby the Organisation might reinvent itself — within existing constitutional parameters — in order to reclaim that relevance so confidently proclaimed for it over fifty years ago.     

Education for all: the globalization of learning targets

It is argued that the ambitious programme ‘Education for All’, launched by UNESCO, could be seriously undermined by its reliance upon the achievement of numerical ‘targets’. Evidence from existing attempts by countries to impose educational targets reveals undesirable side‐effects and distortions of educational systems. The paper explores some of the possible consequences of UNESCO's adherence to such targets.     

How engineers perceive the importance of ethics in Finland

Success in complex and holistic engineering practices requires more than problem-solving abilities and technical competencies. Engineering education must offer proficient technical competences and also train engineers to think and act ethically. A technical ‘engineering-like’ focus and demand have made educators and students overlook the importance of ethical awareness and transversal competences. Using two Finnish surveys, conducted in 2014 and 2016, we examine how engineers perceive working life needs regarding ethics. The data consider different age groups. We research whether an engineer’s age affects their perception of the importance of ethics in their work and if there are differences between young experts and young managers in their use of ethics within work. The results indicate that practising engineers do not consider ethical issues important in their work. This especially applies to younger engineers; the older an engineer, the more important they consider ethics. No statistically significant difference was found between young engineering experts and managers.     

Meeting educational needs in Costa Rica: The role of the distance teaching Universidad Estatal a Distancia

In 1977 the government of Costa Rica established a new university, the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), and charged it with using distance teaching methods to meet the needs of new target groups as well as to alleviate some of the pressure of student demand on the existing three state-funded campus-based universities. This paper examines UNED's impact in relation to three categories of need: (1) student demand for university places; (2) demand from persons who had been previously disadvantaged in one way or another and hence unable to enter a university; and (3) demands generated by the needs of society for trained manpower. The paper evaluates UNED's success or failure in meeting these needs, in so far as it can be measured, and considers evidence based on the views of UNED's students regarding the success of the University in meeting their individual requirements. Throughout, the paper relates UNED's role within the higher education system in Costa Rica to those of the campus-based universities. In spite of the problems of teaching part-time students in a society in which leisure time is at a premium, the authors believe that UNED is to a large degree achieving its objectives by meeting previously unfulfilled needs at the higher education level in Costa Rica.     

What happened to literacy? Historical and conceptual perspectives on literacy in UNESCO

For more than six decades, UNESCO has dedicated itself to be the international agency leader in literacy, even though other aspects of educational development have received greater attention and resources by the broader international community. Resources for UNESCO's literacy work have not increased, and its programmatic activities have been increasingly debated when seen in relationship to the scope of literacy challenges across the globe. Moving forward in a time of restricted budgets will require UNESCO to strengthen itself as a professional innovator and thought leader.     

Educational planning for engineering schools: A study of Iran between 1962 and 1982

The money from oil which enjoyed a fourfold increase in late 1973, enabled Iran to import more and more sophisticated technology. This created a huge demand for engineers. However, supply never equalled demand, and the discrepancy caused shortages of engineers throughout the country. This article is an attempt to investigate the state of educational planning for engineers, a critical ingredient for the industrialization of Iran from 1962 to 1982. Some selected findings were: (1) In the Third Development Plan, 1962–1967, the demand for engineers was 5,600 while the supply reached 3,065. The shortage totalled 2,535. (2) In the Fourth Development Plan, 1968–1972, there was a shortage of 7,707 engineers. (3) In the Fifth Development Plan, 1973–1978, when demand reached 36,400, the supply of engineers was 20,300. This plan was short by 16,100 engineers. The study also takes up the issue of engineering education in the post-Revolution period of 1979–1982. From the study, it was concluded that for educational purposes in Iran, there was never an adequate survey of markets and industries. Therefore, in establishing new engineering schools or expanding existing ones, the needs of the market were never properly taken into account. In cases where a plan existed, implementation did not correctly follow. The recommendations for solving the problem under the present circumstances conclude the research.     

Influences on Young Children's Knowledge: The case of road safety education

Recent commentators on early education have noted a need to combine the strengths of constructivist and sociocultural theoretical perspectives in the early childhood curriculum. Road safety education in the early childhood years rarely reflects a coherent theoretical base. This article argues that effective road safety education for young children needs to incorporate both constructivist and sociocultural perspectives on learning. Interviews with preschool children highlight the variety of influences that affect children's road safety knowledge and illustrate the interface of constructivist and sociocultural interpretations of learning about road safety. The value of a dual perspective is explored further with reference to a road safety curriculum intervention, which used reflective dialogue procedures, derived from Pramling's (1990) phenomenographic perspective on learning. The curriculum project demonstrates that adult interactions that clarify and make explicit children's informal learning about road safety are an important part of road safety education in the early years.     

Continuing Engineering Education for Developing Countries: a challenge and an opportunity

All developing countries are committed to use science and technology for the uplift of the economic condition of their population. Although development is a complex multi-variable optimisation process, and application of science and technology is only one of the dominant variables, no sustained economic development is possible without a proper infrastructure of education and training of scientists, technicians and engineers. Building such an infrastructure is beset with numerous difficulties in many developing countries, e.g. unavailability of trained teachers, lack of financial resources for upgrading laboratories and workshops, and making the course curriculum relevant to the needs of the country. In the context of these difficulties, it is suggested that developing countries should take advantage of continuing education programmes to meet their development needs for trained manpower. Updating the competence of teachers of engineering and technology, improving the skills of technicians and engineers in the wake of improved or new technologies and preparing the young engineers and managers for the technologies of the future have been identified as the major CEE needs of developing countries. Rapid development in educational technology tools, e.g. audio/video material, media-packages, programmed learning, computer-assisted instruction has made it possible to cut down the cost of manpower training and also meet the shortage of fully-trained teachers. Brief details of the CEE programmes being run in India are given. International Cooperation in the exchange of learning material including computer software for instruction purposes has been identified as a method to accelerate the growth of CEE movement in developing countries. A few criteria have been specified to ensure that such exchange of material is useful.     

Young children's everyday concepts of the internet: A platform for cyber‐safety education in the early years

Young children from around the world are accessing the internet in ever increasing numbers. The rapid increase in internet activity by children aged 4–5 years in particular is due to the ease access enabled them by touchscreen internet‐enabled tablet technologies. With young children now online, often independently of adult supervision, the need for early childhood cyber‐safety education is becoming urgent. In this paper, we report the early findings from a project aimed at examining the development of cyber‐safety education for young children. We argue that cyber‐safety education for young children cannot be effectively developed without first considering young children's thinking about the internet. In this paper, we use Vygotsky's ideas about the development of mature concepts from the merging of everyday and scientific concepts. We identify the potential range of everyday concepts likely to form the basis of young children's thinking about the internet as a platform for cyber‐safety education in the early years.     

Inclusive education at the centre of human development issues in Togo

In the concept of inclusive education, the adjective inclusive stands for a universal vision for education for all students. It stands for the mobilisation of various resources in the field of education, for achieving UNESCO's Education For All agenda. Inclusive education aims to combat discrimination and give meaning to difference; that is to say, to the education of students with disabilities and students with special needs. It must be understood and oriented within the framework of the national education strategy. This article presents an analytical study on the system of itinerant teachers initiated in North Togo by the non-governmental organisation Humanity & Inclusion. A practical and inclusive pedagogy project is described as an example of the implementation of inclusive education practices in Togo. Inclusive education is not an immutable concept and does not have a single method of implementation applicable to all countries and to all situations of need. This article reflects on the impact of inclusive education as a pedagogy, to contribute to a continued development of practices for the academic and social inclusion of children with disabilities. Specifically, different actors and interventions in the establishment of inclusive education practices in Togo are identified. Necessary and adequate means for the continued development of national inclusive education policies in Togo are proposed.