Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta education. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta education. Mostrar todas las entradas

Children of the Basarwa ▸ Los niños Basarwa



Rosa María Torres

(abajo el texto en español)


In Botswana I learned of the existence of the Basarwa, a nomadic group living in the Kalahari desert and whom the government has been trying to persuade, without much success, to attend school.

Asked why they do not send their children to school, fathers and mothers have basically the same responses: in their culture, adults do not shout at children or hit them; when children do something wrong, adults talk to them. In school, they state, there is no dialogue; mistakes are paid for with punishment.

What do the Basarwa know of school? Some have actually been to school. Others have heard stories of reprimands and punishments, threats and teasing, humiliation and slaps on the hand and the head. The word has spread. Now, neither adults nor children want to go to school.

What kind of people are the Basarwa? What kind of adults and parents are these who neither shout at nor hit their children, who talk to them, respect them and treat them with sensitivity? What kind of children are these exceptional Basarwa children who grow up without fear of punishment, ill-treatment, and physical violence, without fear of telling the truth and admitting to error?

Nomadic, poor, unschooled, in a perpetual struggle for survival, the Basarwa teach us a lesson in ethics, humanity and hope. Their contempt for school, for the type of school they know or of which they have heard, is indeed a sign of mental health, an act of love and protection for their children.

From their hidden retreat in the Kalahari desert, Basarwa children coalesce the hopes of all the children of the world, regardless of race or culture, economic income or social status. Unknowingly, Basarwa parents give life to the utopia so often envisioned and reiterated, signed and ratified, of the right of children to be loved, respected and heard. Through their dignified illiteracy, the Basarwa remind us of the inevitability of a school meant to love and respect children.

* Published originally in: Education News, UNICEF Education Cluster, New York, 1994.


Los niños Basarwa

En Botswana supe de la existencia de los Basarwa, un grupo nómada que habita en el desierto del Kalahari y al que el gobierno viene tratando hace mucho de persuadir, sin éxito, de enviar a sus niños y niñas a la escuela.

Preguntados acerca del por qué se resisten a la escuela, padres y madres tienen básicamente la misma respuesta: en su cultura, los adultos no gritan ni pegan a los niños; cuando los niños se portan mal, las personas adultas hablan con ellos.  En la escuela - dicen - no hay diálogo; los errores se pagan con castigo.

¿Qué saben los Basarwa sobre el sistema escolar? Algunos de ellos han asistido efectivamente a la escuela. Otros han escuchado historias de reprimendas, amenazas y burlas, humillación y golpes en las manos o en la cabeza. Las historias han circulado. Hoy, ni adultos ni niños quieren saber nada de ir a la escuela.

¿Qué clase de personas son los Basarwa? ¿Qué clase de adultos y de padres de familia que no gritan ni pegan a sus hijos, que hablan con ellos, les respetan y les tratan con sensibilidad? ¿Qué clase de niños son estos excepcionales niños Basarwa que crecen sin miedo al castigo, sin maltrato, sin violencia física, sin miedo a decir la verdad y a admitir el error?

Nómadas, pobres, no-escolarizados, en perpetua lucha por la supervivencia, los Basarwa nos enseñan una lección de ética, de humanismo y de esperanza. Su desprecio por la escuela, esa escuela que conocen o de la cual han escuchado, es de hecho un signo de sanidad mental, un acto de amor y de protección hacia su prole.

Desde un lugar remoto en el desierto Kalahari, los niños Basarwa portan la bandera de todos los niños del mundo, independientemente de su raza, cultura, ingreso económico o estatus social. Sin saberlo, los padres y madres Basarwa dan vida a la utopía tanta veces imaginada y reiterada, tantas veces acordada y ratificada, de niños y niñas con derecho a ser queridos, respetados y escuchados. Desde su digno analfabetismo, los Basarwa nos recuerdan la inevitabilidad de una escuela hecha para amar y respetar a los niños.

* Texto en español publicado originalmente en: Página editorial El Comercio, Quito, 21/8/1994.


Some related texts / Textos relacionados en OTRAƎDUCACION
» Children's rights: A community learning experience in Senegal
» Open Letter to School Children
» Carta abierta para niños y niñas que van a la escuela
» Children's Right to Basic Education
» El derecho de niños y niñas a una educación básica
» Escuelas del mundo  |  Schools in the world
» Por qué los maestros están llamados a ser los primeros defensores de los derechos de los niños

Children's right to basic education



(texto en español aquí)


The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) acknowledges education as a right of every child. The World Declaration on Education for All (1990) and the World Summit for Children (1990) adopted an "expanded vision of basic education" as the foundation of learning for every individual - children, youth and adults. This expanded vision of basic education was defined as an education able to "satisfy basic learning needs" of children, youth and adults, in and out of school. In the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) basic education comprises primary education and lower secondary education.
Within this framework, what does it mean ensuring children's right to basic education?

1. The right to be children
, to play and enjoy playing, to be protected from the abuses of child labour, to have enough time to attend and stay in school, and learn. The right to a home and a family; to the nearby school, to teachers who enjoy teaching and like children, to an education that prepares not only for adulthood but, most importantly, for a happy childhood.

2. The right to learn in and out of the school. The right to be curious, to ask and to be answered, to doubt, to think and argue, to err, to be consulted and to participate, to express themselves spontaneously and with liberty, to be listened and respected in their opinions, to disagree, to imagine and to create, to learn to learn. The right to self-esteem, to parents' and teachers' high expectations, to feel both confident and challenged in their capacities and rewarded for every small gain.

3. The right to continuous learning, starting at birth, in a continuum that does not recognize other limits than the child's own interest and capacity to learn. Since the foundations of personality and knowledge are built in the first years of life, and since it is in this period that the most important and spectacular cognitive development takes place, the most basic right to basic education children have is the right to a good start in life. The right to an early childhood that plants good seeds for their future growth and development.

4. The right to open learning, at home, in school, in daily life, through play, in their interaction with friends, through mass media and the Internet, in their own exploration of the world. The right to enjoy libraries, the sports yard, the museum, the park, the zoo, the circus; to access to books, newspapers, comics, fairy tales, encyclopedias, dictionaries, videos, movies, works of art; to learn not only from books but from the contact with reality, with people and with nature. The right to learn not only from adults but from other children. The right to learn from others but also from personal experience and error, from reflection and discussion.

5. The right to go to a good school and remain there the time required to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are essential to survive, to get to know their own bodies and protect their health, to learn about their culture and roots; to express themselves orally and in writing; to calculate and solve the basic problems of daily life; to better understand themselves and the world around them; to protect the environment; to internalize the values of justice and solidarity; to be aware of their rights and duties; to build the foundations of their self-esteem and self-confidence, and to continue learning.  

6. The right to an education tailor-made for children in which everything -- relationships, contents and methods, buildings and spaces, calendars and schedules, regulations and norms -- is designed to meet the needs of children, not adults. An education that respects the knowledge, points of view and dreams of children. An education based on joy, play and music, surprise and adventure, movement and laughter, not as complements but as the raw material for teaching and learning.     

7. The right to quality and relevant education, oriented to learning, aware of the importance not only of how much but also of what is learned and how. The right to an education free from prejudice and stereotypes, that fights racism and sexism, respects differences and acknowledges the value of the child's own language and culture; an education that highlights what children know and are able to do, rather than what they don't know and are unable to do; an education that privileges cooperation over competence, dialogue over monologue, doing over saying; an education that aims at achieving what constitutes the dream of any good parent and teacher: children and students who are better than themselves.    

8. The right to basic learning conditions essential to take advantage of school and other educational opportunities, and to fully develop the child's capacities. The right to basic education assists each boy and girl to demand from their communities and societies not only free schools, trained teachers, relevant curricula and necessary materials, but also the indispensable economic, social and affective conditions: nutrition, health care, proper housing, and, above all, love, emotional support, respect, and a general environment of stability, security and peace.

9. The right to educated parents, because parents' education is crucial for children's survival, well-being, learning and future perspectives. The right to informed parents, aware of the importance of educating both girls and boys, respectful of child play, open to dialogue and persuasion rather than to punishment. The right to literate parents, who appreciate the effort involved in learning, distinguish bad from good teaching, take part in school matters, and are willing to demand quality education. The right to parents who are knowledgeable of their rights and obligations, and possess the self-confidence and the fundamental knowledge to help their children grow, learn and develop.

10. The right to responsible information and communication media, sensitive to children's needs, capable of complementing and enriching their education: of putting the urban child in contact with the field and the rural child in contact with the city; of widening their vision of the world and transporting them to other realities, countries and times; of introducing them to the possibilities and limits of modern science and technology; of showing them the greatness and also the smallness of mankind; of developing their appreciation for universal art, science and culture; and of developing their vocation for peace, non-violence, tolerance, solidarity and justice.

Basic education is a universal right. It assists all children: boys and girls, rich and poor, those living in the city, in rural and remote areas, those with special needs, working children, indigenous children and those coming from ethnic minorities, those who have a family and those who live in the streets, migrants, children who are refugees and displaced by war.  

Related texts in this blog:
Rosa María Torres, Open Letter to School Children

Rosa María Torres, Children's Rights: A Community Learning Experience in Senegal
Rosa María Torres, On LifeLong LearningSobre Aprendizaje a lo Largo de la Vida

Military spending and education ▸ Gasto militar y educación

Tomado de: Altercom
 Rosa María Torres

▸ "6 days of military spending by aid donors would close the USD $16 billion Education for All external financing gap."
▸ "6 días de gasto militar de los países ricos podría cubrir la brecha de USD 16 billones de ayuda externa requerida para la Educación para Todos". 

Source / Fuente:
» Education for All -EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011 "The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education" (UNESCO, Paris, March 2011).
» Informe de Seguimiento de la Educación para Todos (EPT) en el Mundo 2011 "Una crisis encubierta: conflictos armados y educación" (UNESCO, París, Marzo 2011).

▸ It costs USD $1 million to keep one U.S. solider in Afghanistan for one year.
▸ Cuesta USD $ 1 millón sostener a un soldado estadounidense en Afganistán durante un año.

Source / Fuente:
 » The Washington Post, 10 things you didn’t know about the Afghan war

El gasto militar anual por habitante en España es 368 Euros.

▸ España arrastra una deuda de 27.000 millones de Euros en los Programas Especiales de Armamentos (PEAS).

Annual military spending per capita in Spain is 368 Euros.
▸ Spain has a debt of 27.000 million Euros in Special Weapon Programmes (PEAS).


Fuente/Source
» El gasto militar de España en cifras sencillas (Rebelión) 
  
▸ 21 países en vías de desarrollo gastan más en armamento que en escuelas primarias (UNESCO)


To know more / Para saber más:

» The world in over-armed and peace is under-funded (infographic)
» Informe sobre mercenarios estadounidenses: Contratos caros, malos y corruptos

Estados Unidos desperdició entre 31.000 y 60.000 millones de dólares en las guerras de Irak y Afganistán en la última década, debido a problemas como la escasa supervisión de contratistas, corrupción y mala planificación, según un informe divulgado ayer. (Página/12, Buenos Aires, 1 sep. 2011)

Related texts / Textos relacionados:


The Million Paulo Freires




On the night when Paulo Freire died on 2 May 1997, Rosa María Torres wrote this text, published in issue 53 of our journal, as a personal memorial. She updated the text on the 10th anniversary of his death.
- DVV International, Adult Education and Development, Number 69, Bonn, 2007.

They don’t understand me,” he told me during an interview in São Paulo back in 1985. “They don’t understand what I have said, what I say, what I have written.

Mystified by some, demonized by others, misunderstood by many, Paulo Freire often distanced himself from the images about him and his work that came from both theoreticians and practitioners, left wing and right wing, all over the world. Over and over again he asked his critics – but he might as well have asked his followers – to contextualize his work historically, to acknowledge the evolution of his thought and his self-criticism, and to allow him, in sum, the right to continue thinking, learning and living beyond his books and, in particular, beyond Education as a Practice of Liberty (1967) and Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1969), two of his most famous books, and where many, admirers and critics, left him virtually suspended. The Paulo Freire of the last few decades, he who died last 2 May 1997, is just as or even more alive than that of the 60s and 70s, although unfortunately unknown by the majority of the people.



Followers and detractors have often coincided in reducing Freire to a caricature of himself, locking up his thought in a single field (generally, that of adult literacy), reducing it to a number of clichés, and even to a method and a set of related techniques. Around the world, Freire evokes terms such as literacy, adult education, conscientization, dialogue, banking approach to education, circle of culture, generative word and generative theme, thematic universe, action-reflectionaction, praxis, coding and decoding, participatory research, critical knowledge and critical reflection, dialectical relationship, speaking the word, transforming reality, pedagogy of the oppressed, culture of silence, cultural invasion, cultural liberation. 

Some refer to Paulo Freire’s method (or methodology), others to Paulo Freire’s theory, others to Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, others to Paulo Freire’s philosophy (and philosophical anthropology), others to Paulo Freire’s program, others to Paulo Freire’s system. I asked him once which of those denominations he felt most comfortable with. “None of them”, he answered. “I didn’t invent a method, or a theory, or a program, or a system, or a pedagogy, or a philosophy. It is people who put names to things.

A citizen of the world, the name of Freire remained closely linked to Latin America. In Europe, North America, Africa and Asia many educators identify Latin America with Paulo Freire just as many others associate it with the salsa, the guerrilla, the revolution, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Pelé or Maradona. And yet, it is probably in Latin America, and particularly in Brazil, his own country, where Freire has been the object of both the warmest reception and the hardest criticism. In life and in death, his ideas and positions generated and will continue to generate strong sentiments, passionate adherents and rejecters, very different and even diametrically opposed interpretations. For some, a subversive, a revolutionary, thus confronting prison and exile, and associated by many with Marxism, socialism and even communism. For others, a romantic and an idealist, a lukewarm “humanist and culturalist,” an ideologue of conscientization without a clear political base and proposal for social transformation. For some, a complex and advanced educational philosophy, theory and praxis. For others, an incomplete thinking, lacking scientific rigor, and in need of further theoretical elaboration.

Inside and outside of Latin America, many admirers credit Freire with insights and developments that form part of the historic legacy of democratic and progressive educational thinking worldwide and in which Freire himself found sources of inspiration. There are thus those who believe to be original Freirean contributions issues such as the respect for the learner and his/her knowledge, the acknowledgment of the learner’s reality as the starting point for the teaching-learning process, the importance of dialogue as a pedagogical tool, and even the invention of terms such as “praxis” or “conscientization”.  Others, on the other extreme, deny him all originality or else have long claimed to have “surpassed” Freire, either on theoretical, political, ideological or pedagogical grounds, particularly in the field of literacy and adult education.

Thus, from the early 1970s and up to now many have proclaimed they have surpassed Freire’s literacy method, a method seen by some simply as a set of techniques (generative word, dialogue between teachers and learners, coding and decoding of pictures, etc.) and by others as a broad philosophical-ideological framework (conscientization, critical thinking, unity of theory and practice, social transformation, liberation project, etc.). Also, while most people see Freire as the main instigator and inspirer of the Latin American movement of educación popular [popular education], many within the movement see it rooted in a critical approach to Freire’s work.

¿Educar para adaptar? ▸ Education for Adaptation?

Rosa María Torres

 (see English below)


¿Educar para adaptar?

«Somos seres de transformación, no de adaptación» Paulo Freire

«El deber de un ciudadano es no creer en ninguna profecía del futuro, sino actuar para realizar el mejor futuro posible» Richard Stallman

«Piensa diferente» Steve Jobs

«Ojalá estemos celebrando todos el sagrado derecho a la indignación, que es la prueba de que estamos de veras vivos y de que somos dignos» Eduardo Galeano
«Frente a los peligros que afrontan nuestras sociedades interdependientes es tiempo de acción, de participación, de no resignarse» Stéphane Hessel
«Convoquemos una verdadera insurrección pacífica contra los medios de comunicación de masas que no propongan como horizonte para nuestra juventud otras cosas que no sean el consumo en masa, el desprecio hacia los más débiles y hacia la cultura, la amnesia generalizada y la competición excesiva de todos contra todos» Stéphane Hessel, Indignáos.


La "sociedad de la información", el "mundo de cambios acelerados", la "era de la incertidumbre" que nos ha tocado vivir están ampliando las fronteras de la información, la comunicación, el conocimiento, la ciencia y la tecnología, pero también exacerbando el consumismo, el despilfarro, el desempleo, el individualismo, el narcisimo, la pérdida de empatía y de altruismo, la competencia, la desconfianza hacia los demás, las migraciones, la destrucción del planeta, los riesgos para la vida humana, las guerras, la crisis alimentaria, la escasez del agua, las brechas entre ricos y pobres, entre el Norte y el Sur, entre los obsesos y los que padecen hambre, entre los "incluidos" y los "excluidos", entre los "conectados" y los "desconectados", entre los con conexión rápida y los sin banda ancha...

No obstante, "adaptarse al cambio" es hoy considerada por muchos una "cualidad del futuro", parte de los listados de "competencias del siglo 21" propuestos desde el Norte, junto con cuestiones tales como el pensamiento crítico, la creatividad, la capacidad para resolver problemas, el espíritu emprendedor o el trabajo en equipo. Hay quienes incluso ... plantean la "adaptabilidad" como un posible indicador de la calidad de la educación (BID-Banco InterAmericano de Desarrollo).

Hoy más que nunca, la educación necesita negar el pensamiento único, generar pensamiento crítico y alternativo, debate de ideas, conciencia social y conciencia planetaria, cultura ciudadana, acción contestataria, transformación social y política, antes que la mera repetición, la resiliencia, la adaptación o la inclusión a secas.

Hoy más que nunca la educación debe renunciar a la trampa de la competencia, los puntajes y los ránkings, en nombre de la ansiada "excelencia". Necesitamos educación en y para la equidad, en y para la colaboración, en y para la democracia. Educación para la emancipación, no para mejorar ránkings.

En el contexto actual, "educación para adaptarse a un mundo cambiante" y "educación para la inclusión" - consignas de la época - equivalen a hacerle el juego al sometimiento y a la resignación.


Education for Adaptation? 


«We are transformative beings, not beings for accommodation» Paulo Freire
«I did not want to predict the future. I want to prevent it»  Ray Bradbury

«
It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society» Jiddu Krishnamurti
«
Think different» Steve Jobs

«
People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the world»  Richard Stallman

«
Faced with the dangers facing our interdependent societies, it is time for action, participation, not resignation» Stéphane Hessel


The "information society", the "rapidly changing world" and the "age of uncertainty" we are living in is expanding information, communication, science and technology, but it is also exacerbating consumerism, waste, unemployment, individualism, narcissism, loss of empathy and of altruism, competitiveness, mistrust, violence, deteriorating the planet, threatening human life, generating new wars, widening the gaps between the rich and the poor, the North and the South, the included and the excluded, the obese and the hungry, the connected and the disconnected, those with rapid Internet connections and those with painfully slow ones...

However, "adapting to change" is considered today a "quality of the future", one of the "21st century skills" together with critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving skills, enterpreneurship or team work. Some even consider "adaptability" as a potential ingredient for quality education! (IDB - InterAmerican Development Bank).

More than ever, education must promote alternative thinking, citizenship-building, empathy, social and global awareness, political mobilization and transformation, rather than mere resilience, adaptation or inclusion. In the current context, "education to adapt to change" and "Inclusive education" - much repeated mottos in current times - can only be calls for resignation.
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12 Theses on Educational Change


Rosa María Torres
Justicia educativa y justicia económica: 12 tesis para el cambio educativo
Estudio continental encargado por el Movimiento Internacional 'Fe y Alegría'/ Entreculturas, Madrid, 2005.


Rosa María Torres
Educational Justice and Economic Justice: 12 Theses on Educational Change
Continental study commissioned by Movimiento Internacional 'Fe y Alegría'/ Entreculturas, Madrid, 2005. (free downlod - available in Spanish only)

1. From POVERTY ALLEVIATION to DEVELOPMENT.
2. From education as a SECTORAL POLICY to education as a TRANSECTORAL POLICY.
3. From predominating ECONOMIC CRITERIA to a HOLISTIC VISION of education.

4. From INTERNATIONAL AID to authentic INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION.
5. From SCHOOLING to EDUCATION.
6. From the right to EDUCATION to the right to a GOOD EDUCATION.
7. From ACCESS to LEARNING.
8. From the right to LEARN to the right to LEARN THROUGHOUT LIFE.
9. From the SCHOOL to the LEARNING COMMUNITY.
10. From TEACHER TRAINING to THE TEACHERS' ISSUE.
11. From BASIC EDUCATION AS SCHOOL EDUCATION to BASIC EDUCATION AS CITIZEN EDUCATION.
12. From ADAPTING TO CHANGE to PROMOTING AND REORIENTING CHANGE.


Related texts in this blog
From school community to learning community

Rwanda: A blog is born!




Kigali, Rwanda. These are five of the six Rwanda CapEFA team members - Jeanine (coordinator), Charles, Immaculate, Josephine, and Palatin (Alex could not join us today) - in charge of monitoring and capacity-building activities for adult literacy at provincial level. The picture was taken by me at the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) in Kigali.

Why the happy faces and the celebration? Because we managed to creat a blog and learn how to do it. The idea came to my mind yesterday during the workshop: why not create a blog for the programme and for the team?. Alex was the only one in the team who knew about blogs and was familiar with them. None of them thought it could be so easy to create one. And for me, it was my first time teaching how to create a blog to a group of people.

Creating the blog ended up being the closing activity of this week's two-day CapEFA workshop that I facilitated at MINEDUC.

It took us two hours to create it, including the opening of a Gmail account and a step-by-step explanation from my side. Then, it took us one hour to upload the first post as well as some pictures taken during the workshop.

Next step will be feeding the blog and each one of them creating a personal one. I am sure they will manage. It is now just a matter of continuing to explore the Internet and to learn on their own.

A great way to finalize a capacity-building workshop for a capacity-building team and a capacity-building project, and a great way to honour an adult literacy programme!

A happy day for all of us engaged.


Kigali, Rwanda, 17 November 2010

Related study

- Rwanda: Study of literacy needs and programmes for youth and adults (2005) by Anthony Okech and Rosa María Torres with the collaboration of Alexander Lyambabaje, Genevieve Mukandekezi and Timothy Njoroge. Rwanda Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), [Paris]: UNESCO, 2005.


Children's rights: A community learning experience in Senegal


Children's rights: A community learning experience in Senegal
(Visit to Thiès, Senegal, 18 November 1994)


Four o'clock. The expected day has arrived: by foot or by bus, chanting and singing, children and adults from a nearby rural village begin to stream into this village. Learners - children and adolescents - from another village want to share what they have learnt in school around children's rights, through a special act they have prepared with the help of their facilitator. Children and adults are present, many of them students of either the adult or the adolescents programme, parents, the facilitators, and the members of the Village Management Committees of both villages. This is part of the non-formal basic education programme in national languages initiated in 1988 and implemented in Thiès by TOSTAN, a Senegalese NGO, with UNICEF and CIDA support.

The village comprises of barely a dozen homes. The houses are small and built with mud and straw, clustered together and separated from another cluster by wooden fences made out of branches. A few scattered trees and dusty narrow streets complete the scenario.

Most adults present are women. Many of them are mothers of the students, many are students or ex-students themselves of the adult education programme. Today, Friday, many men are at the mosque.

The entertainment has been organised in the open air, at the entrance of the village, next to a big baobab tree. A huge canvas hung between the tree and a fence provides a tent to protect against the sun. Children and adults sit on the floor, on mats or on small wooden seats. According to my count, over 200 people are gathered here. Facing them is a big map, a blackboard, a flipchart and a table.

Several signs with written texts in Wolof are to be seen all over the village: on the tree, on the wooden fences, on the houses. They are part of an effort to create a "literate environment", surrounding villagers with written texts. Streets have been baptised with such names as STREET OF KNOWLEDGE and STREET OF PEACE. The Boutique (a small village shop where mainly matches, oil, salt, are sold) -which, together with the school, is the only "modern" cement house in the village - displays on its facade a sign in Wolof that reads:

BOUTIQUE / CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT

The facilitator is the master of ceremonies. He has made the drawings to illustrate children's rights, prepared his students, and promoted and organised this encounter. Everything is conducted in Wolof, one of Senegal's six national languages.

A series of songs introduce the act. The “alphabet song” seems to be one of the most popular ones: they tell me that the words remain the same, but each village puts it to its own melody, some of them with chorals. Most of the songs have been written by the students with the help of their facilitators. Thus, through music and rhythm, they welcome the visitors, praise the facilitator and acknowledge the organisations in charge of the education programme. A special song has been created on children's rights.

The facilitator announces the official start of the programme and explains it al length to the audience. Then he begins to unfold the flipchart.

Children of the world

The first picture is an introduction to the flipchart and presents children of different races and countries, wearing different costumes. The facilitator asks the students to describe what they see in the picture, and then asks them to point out differences. Children raise their hands and snap their fingers. They all want to speak. They give all sorts of answers: the hair, the shoes, the skin colour, the height, the clothes, the eyes. He then asks about their similarities and the children again answer: they are all people, they all have joys and problems, they all have to eat food. One small girl shyly states:

- "All the children have rights."

Everyone claps. Now the facilitator asks for a volunteer to come to the front, identify and choose a sheet of paper on which a text is written corresponding to the subject of the drawing, in this case, "All the children of the world have rights". A girl comes to the front: she studies the sheets displayed on the table, picks the right sheet, and then "reads" it aloud while turning around so that the phrase is visible to the entire audience. While "read" is here a verb between inverted commas - these young learners have started school only two months ago - since it is rather visually recognising words and phrases, this is actually the very first step to real reading, to reading with meaning and with fun!

Adults are expectant, laugh and applaud, seem both proud and annoyed. Perplexed and uneasy at the beginning, they begin to feel increasingly at ease as the act unfolds.

The whole presentation on children's rights will follow this pattern: introduction of the picture; questions to children on what they see illustrated; discussion of the right suggested by the picture; interpretation of the right by the children through a short, often provocative, dramatisation or poem they have created; discussion of the play or poem; and identification and reading aloud of small texts written on sheets of paper and which correspond to the drawings.

The right to good nutrition
The picture shows millet, chicken, tomatoes, fish, papaya, monkey bread (a fruit from the baobab tree), and eggs. After an introductory discussion on the right to good nutrition, a child reads a poem about a selfish father who wants all the good morsels of food saved for himself, and is not concerned about his children's nutrition. A man in the audience, who has been listening to the story with evident anxiety, raises his hand and says, genuinely annoyed:

- "But I hide when I do it. How do you know?"

Everyone laughs. The facilitator then asks the children how they would answer the selfish father. Further discussion follows among the men. Volunteers come to the front and pick up sheets with colourful drawings of food and short phrases written in Wolof:

children and chicken
children and papaya
children and millet
children and good nutrition

The right to health
The illustration shows a mother immunising her young child. Following the questions and answers on children's right to health, a skit is staged with a husband and wife discussing the immunisation issue. The wife - a young volunteer who has borrowed a baby from a real mother in the audience - asks her husband for money in order vaccinate the child. He says he does not have the money. She blames him for spending the money in playing the lottery and buying tea. Finally, he agrees and she takes the baby to the vaccination post. Laughter and applause follow from the audience as the boy (playing the husband) dances off into the crowd. A lively discussion among the parents ensues in reaction to the husband's attitude. A girl volunteers to identify, pick up and read aloud the message "Children and health".

The right to a clean environment
The picture shows a woman with a broom, cleaning up her yard, and several garbage baskets aligned by the fence of the house. After discussion, the children present a skit in which they have been working on a village clean up and are discussing further actions to assure success. Then an older man comes along and throws down paper from the food he has been eating. When the children try to explain to him that he should not dirty the environment they are working to clean up, he becomes angry and says that children do not have the right to tell adults what to do. Discussion follows this skit among the children and the adults.

The facilitator asks:
- "What will happen in the future if everyone continues to pollute the environment?"

The children respond in unison:
- "Our whole country will be a garbage pile!".

The adults are delighted with this outburst.

The right to education
The drawings illustrate four types of learning ("houses of learning"): a woman teaching her child to cook (life learning), a blacksmith teaching a young apprentice (traditional job learning), a boy with a wooden slate on his knees (religious learning), and a boy and a girl with modern clothing and books under their arms (learning brought in from the outside, the French school system). The facilitator asks questions on each type of learning: what for? what methods? what differences?. A child comes forward and reads a poem on the importance of learning in national languages.

The right not to work too much
In this drawing, a girl is busy with many domestic chores. A girl comes to the front and reads a poem that speaks of a girl who does all the work in the house and has no time to play. She ends the poem with:

"At night, when I finally lie down to sleep,
I think and think and think about life.
My heart is full and I begin to cry
Because I do not know
When all this suffering will end."

Adults - and, particularly, mothers - seem uncomfortable and distressed.

[A parenthesis on children's responsibilities]

At this point, a sheet on RESPONSIBILITIES is inserted in the flipchart, apparently to counterbalance the many rights of children and the increasing anxiety of parents. There are no pictures on this paper, only written text. The facilitator asks the children to name their responsibilities and duties. Some of the answers are:

to be polite
to be respectful
to love oneself
to love one's country
to be obedient
to help out
to promote peace

The right to play
The illustration shows several children at play: a boy and a girl playing together; a girl on a swing; another girl dancing. The facilitator asks volunteers to show the audience certain traditional Senegalese games. Five girls come to the front and show two such games, combining song and rhythm.

The right to free expression
The drawing shows children talking to each other in a circle. A boy recites a poem that ends with "all children have good ideas, so let us speak up". Adults laugh nervously.

The right not to be exploited
The illustration shows a Marabout - traditional teacher in the (religious Koranic school) - with a child chained next to him, and another child begging near a bus full of people. The issue appears to be very sensitive. A man, visibly upset, asks for an explanation. The facilitator explains that there are different types of Marabouts, and that this one belongs to the type that do not really educate children under their care, but instead exploit them and live off them, forcing children to beg and to bring them money, or else they get punished and chained. Then, he tells his own story while he lived in a with a Marabout: he begged for alms, but only in his own neighbourhood and at that time begging was considered a formative experience, learning to be humble and to see how hard it is to be poor. Everyone is really attentive to his explanation. Many mothers nod their heads in agreement.

The right not to be punished
The drawing shows a father beating his son. Children comment that no one has the right to beat anyone (literally, in Wolof, "no one has the right to take the personality away from another"). Parents remain quiet.

One of the visitors intervenes and challenges the children with the question:
- "But how do you teach children if you do not punish them?."

A small, skinny girl immediately responds:
- "You take him or her to the back of the house or into a room, and there you talk to them and advise them."

There is sustained laughter. Many seem surprised at the young girl's quick, sharp and wise response.

In concluding the act we, the visitors, are introduced. The Presidents of both Village Management Committees address the audience. They congratulate and applaud the facilitator. A girl spontaneously reminds everyone to also congratulate and applaud the facilitator's trainer.

In his brief address, one of the Presidents of the Committee says to the children:
- "If I were you, and had learnt what you have learnt in two months, I would be shouting and praising your teacher more than you do".

A father in the audience thanks children because "they have brought a lot of knowledge to the adults".

A mother says: "It is the first time that three neighbouring communities have met together. And this is thanks to the education of both the children and the adults."

A young boy, full of enthusiasm, jumps into the centre of the stage and starts to dance. Someone grabs a huge plastic bowl and uses it as a drum.

And the big party begins. Girls and boys, children and adults: all are in the mood to dance. The same spot, different choreography. Brief, intense, frantic, individual dancing performances that commit the whole body, the mind, the entire person. While one dances, the others clap hands, and others - mainly women - play on improvised drums (plastic, metal, wood) that multiply very quickly. An educational act turns into a village celebration. The critical issue of children's rights has brought children and adults closer, and two villages in contact for the first time.

We have witnessed a memorable occasion in the lives of these children and adults, and of these villages. Nothing here has been conventional. Education and rights, school and life, students and parents, parents and teachers, teachers and students, reading-writing and singing-dancing, flipcharts, poems and plays: they all seemingly interact and go together naturally. Conventional categories and classifications - formal/ non-formal/ informal education, school/out-of-school, or the distinction between children/ adolescents/ adults, or between children's education/ adult education, or even the term "community participation"- do not help to capture and explain what this is all about.

There is definitely an innovative approach to literacy; not necessarily a new method but a renewed understanding and a fresh insight on the meaning and joy involved in teaching and learning to read and write. Literacy as something that involves both children and adults, as a creative undertaking on the part of both teachers and learners, as an intelligent act, as a communication challenge. Literacy not per se but to know about one's rights, to reflect upon and to discuss them. Literacy as a social and cultural capital to share with others, with other children, with other adults, with other villages. Children and adults learning together, becoming literate and aware together, in a genuine family and community learning process.

No conventional terms or prefabricated educational jargon can describe what the villagers and ourselves, the visitors, experienced in those two hours in Thiès. This is why I have preferred to describe it, and to describe it as I saw it, to share it with you.

Related posts in this blog
Rosa María Torres, Children's right to basic education
Rosa María Torres, Open Letter to School Children

Education in the Information Society

Rosa María Torres
(ver texto en español aquí)


This text is part of the book Word Matters: Multicultural Perspectives on Information Societies, a collaborative effort of CMIC (Canada), FUNREDES (Dominican Republic) and VECAM (France), coordinated by Alain Ambrosi, Valérie Peugeot and Daniel Pimienta. The book, published by C. F. Éditions in various languages, was officially launched at a special session at the World Summit on the Information Society; (Tunis, 16-18 Nov. 2005). Much has happened in the world since then and in the ICT field specifically. However, many of the facts and critical issues highlighted in this text remain valid and are challenges requiring further elaboration and action in the increasingly complex intersection between education, information, communication, learning and the Internet.

Introduction

Are we really dealing with a concept when we talk about Education in the Information Society? The term does not appear with its own drive and meaning, but rather tied to the rhetoric of the “Information Society” (IS), proclaimed to be the society of the future, of the 21st century. It does not have one single meaning; it exists side by side with many related terms without clear borders, and with poor conceptual, theoretical, and pedagogical development. Both IS and Education in the IS tend to confuse information, knowledge and learning, and to reduce them to so-called "modern Information and Communication Technologies" (ICTs). ICTs have created new identities, forms and levels of inclusion/exclusion: the connected versus the not-connected, and huge differences within the "the connected" in terms of availability, modes and quality of access.

Technologies, for what kind of education project?

In order to approach Education in the IS we must approach each of its constituent terms: “information society” and “education”.

Traditionally, the term education evokes the school system, formal education, and childhood. Emphasis has been placed on teaching rather than on learning. Little importance has been given to learning, with quantitative indicators of access and completion dominating the scenario. Learning is confused with assimilation and repetition of information. More importance is given to things - infrastructure and equipment - than to people and to teaching and learning conditions, to the supply rather than to the demand, to results over processes. The school mentality has contributed to limit the vision and the field of education, conceiving it as a sector, thus separating it from political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. Also, education is traditionally viewed as a service rather than as a right.

In the history of education, “modern” ICTs are in fact the last wave of a continuum. Educational or instructional technology has had a high profile in the education field over several decades: in the 60s and 70s, it was radio and television; in the 80s and 90s, school textbooks, video, and the computer as an instructional aid; since the mid-1990s, the computer and the CD-Rom started to dominate the scenario and, in recent years, the Internet, increasingly displacing “conventional technologies”.

In the late 1980s, UNICEF adopted the term “Third Channel” to refer to “all available instruments and information, communication, and social action channels that can be used to help transmit basic knowledge, and inform and educate the population regarding social issues”, assuming formal and non-formal education as the other two educational channels (UNICEF, 1990). The World Conference on Education for All (Jomtien, Thailand, 1990), organized by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, and the World Bank, placed great hopes on this “third channel” to reach the six Education for All (EFA) goals by the the year 2000. However, in 2000 the goals were reduced and the deadlines extended to 2015. Today, the goal for countries in the South ("developing countries") is no longer “basic education” ("meeting people’s basic learning needs", as defined at Jomtien), but "primary education” (completion of 4 years of schooling is the indicator set by the Millennium Development Goals). The “Third Channel”, originally viewed as a broad channel shared by traditional and modern technologies, disappeared from EFA goals and was reduced to ICTs. Over the past few years, Education in the IS rhetoric has focused on the virtual world, leaving behind the discussion on basic learning needs, adopting as central topics such as competitiveness and the "new skills" required by the market in order to “adapt to change” -- rather than to actively promote, redirect and control change.

It is necessary to place the “technological revolution” in space and time, as well as the announcement of the IS and the “Information Age”. They all originated in the North ("developed countries"), particularly the United States, and were later transplanted to and appropriated by the South. They emerged in the 1990s, a decade that marked a turn in the history of humanity, with the globalization of the neoliberal model and its great paradoxes: technological revolution with growing social exclusion, globalization with greater localization, concentration of political and economic power in few hands together with (also global) expansion and articulation of social protest and social movements. Largely inspired by the growing life span and by the expansion of ICTs, the old “lifelong learning” utopia reemerged in the 2000s and was proposed as the guiding paradigm for education, capacity-building/training, and research systems in the North and especially in Europe. Inaugurating the new century, an embrionary vision of "the school of the future”, "the school of the 21st century", started to take ground (Delors et. al. 1996; European Communities Commission, 2000).

In this context, intertwined with powerful interests and conflicts, very different visions of the IS have emerged: an IS understood as access to ICTs, aiming at reducing the “digital divide” and ensuring a "connected" world “; and an IS “with a human face”, that transcends ICTs, committed to lifelong learning and to the building of a new social paradigm with economic justice, equality, and well-being for all. Both visions remain in conflict and have been present at the World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS: Geneva 2003; Tunis 2005).

Often the terms society and age, as well as information-communication-knowledge-learning are used interchangeably, without due differentiations. A clear example is the International Adult Literacy Survey - IALS, which in 1997 spoke of competencies for the “knowledge society” and in 2000, of competencies for the “information age” (OECD/Statistics Canada 1997, 2000). The WSIS made the term IS official, thus choosing to talk about society and information. An ongoing and much-debated decision and terminology.

An Information Society that increases inequality

Education for the Information Society” does not have a clear or unique definition. In fact, it has not been incorporated in international Glossaries related to education. Parameters or indicators referred to its feasibility, relevance, and quality have not been established. The Education Index, a component of the Human Development Index (HDI) calculated by the UNDP, is limited to adult literacy rates and enrollment rates for the three education levels (primary, secondary, tertiary), and is clearly insufficient to capture the educational profile and status of any society.

Given the dominant trend to reduce IS to ICTs, Education in the IS also tends to be reduced to ICTs and ICT potential for educational and learning purposes, in and out of school, to assist educators and/or to replace them. “Education and ICTs”, “Use of ICTs in Education”, “digital literacy”, are some of the names adoped by this vision of Education in the IS. Many confuse it with virtual or electronic education (e-learning), often romanticizing it while undermining the credibility and relevance of the school system, thus reinforcing the trend towards privatization and/or towards the elimination of the school system altogether.

Characteristics attributed to Education in the IS usually refer to the greater flexibility allowed by ICTs, thus allowing greater diversification and individualization/personalization, all of them old dreams within the education field. However, concerns continue to be centered on supply, opportunities, and access (to the computer, to Internet, and more recently to bandwith) rather than on the relevance and the quality of content and methods, production and dissemination conditions, and in general what type of information/education and for what purpose (personal and social impact). Hardware predominates over software technology and education itself, and information over communication, knowledge and learning. There is a rather passive and reactive approach to ICTs - seen as tools capable of disseminating information - rather than a more active and proactive approach where individuals may see themselves not only as consumers but also as creators of information and knowledge.

From the first telematic networks (1980s), aimed at interconnecting schools at the national and international levels, we have moved into macro policies and projects that propose to install computers in every school and, ideally, to ensure one computer per student. Many believe that ICTs will be able to make personalized and  lifelong learning a reality, with the help of the many mobile devices and gadgets that continue to emerge.

In fact, the possibility of lifelong learning has never been so close and at the same time so far away: close for the minority that can access and take full advantage of the learning possibilities of ICTs; far for the majority of mankind, the poor, the illiterate, the millions around the world living on less than one dollar a day, those being prescribed four years of primary school for the “school age” population. This is what the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) propose for education today - acritically adopted by the WSIS - together with gender equality in primary and secondary education;  no goal for adult education. We are thus participating in a curious Information Age, where the right to education shrinks while the economic and social divide between the North and the South, between the poor and the rich, grows.

Key topics for debate and reflection

Some problems and dilemmas (conceptual, political, social, ethical, pedagogical) linked to the Information Society (IS) and to Education in the IS (EIS) within this framework may be summarized as follows:

- "Education in the Information Society" (EIS) is a vague term, difficult to grasp, trapped within two problematic terms: education (in times when learning becomes a key word, together with learning to learn and lifelong learning) and information (when the objective is to transcend data, to build, advance and use knowledge).
- The weak or nonexistent differentiation between information and knowledge, between Information Society (IS) and Knowledge Society (KS), and the use of both as interchangeable, with an emphasis on information rather than on communication.
- The lack of clear differentiation between information and education, capacity-building and training, education and learning, and even teaching and learning. These confusions often attribute ICTs characteristics and roles that do not correspond. It is essential to differentiate the informative, communicational, and educational/training potential of ICTs and of each of them in particular.
- Modern ICTs associated with information and communication, ignoring the role of traditional ICTs and key information/communication institutions such as the family, the community, the school system, mass media, social networks, the street, the workplace, etc.
- ICTs (and actual notions on information and communication) reduced to the computer and the Internet. In addition, the use of “modern” to classify ICTs is relative; there are other modern technologies, others came before, and these will soon cease to be such.
- ICTs between resistance and fascination, with fascination winning the battle so far and maybe for a long time to come. “Access to a computer and to English teaching” have become expectations and false indicators of the quality of a school, whether public or private, and increasingly also in many non-formal educational programmes.
- Between domestication and empowerment: the double edge of ICTs, which may serve both for globalization of consumption, competition, and other values permeating the neoliberal model, as well as for globalizing knowledge, protest, solidarity, and the building of a different world (World Social Forum).
- “Reduce the digital divide” established as an objective in itself, without paying attention to the structural gaps that explain and support the digital divide (political, economic, and social, between the North and the South, and within each country).
- Powerful political and financial interests behind the race for ICTs remain hidden behind the IS rhetoric. The field of education has become a privileged marketplace, disputed by politics as well as by private companies and large multinational corporations.
- Tension between the local, the national, and the global, with a devouring trend of global cultural industries and powers, resulting in increased homogenization and "one-size fits all" in terms of thinking and doing.
- Great expectations placed on ICTs as artifices of the much awaited "education revolution", diverting attention and financial resources from essential conditions and structural factors that condition education supply and demand: the economic ans social well.being of the population, basic rights being served, and a highly professional and well paid teaching force for all levels of free public education. A bad school with computers continues to be a bad school.
- The IS and the emphasis on information contribute to reinforce rather than to alleviate old and well-known problems of the school system and culture such as memorization, encyclopedism,   superficial and fast reading,  reading to get information rather than to enjoy knowledge and good writing, fast writing, Internet quick searches confused with research, copy and paste, etc. “Banking education”, in sum, has left the classroom and is being expanded on a global scale.
- Reiteration of errors, ignoring lessons learned. Countries and international agencies continue to repeat the same problems and errors in the design and implementation of policies and projects linked to ICTs and education. Purchase and distribution go first, teachers - as usual - go last.
- Double discourses and dual agendas for the North and for the South. In full emergence of the IS, the North adopts lifelong learning for itself and prescribes 4 years of schooling for the South. "Think globally and act locally" seems also part of this scheme that divides thinkers and doers. The “official aid for development”, nor by its volume nor by its conditionalities, by no means resolves a historic and structural problem of asymmetry, inequality, and growing foreign debt.

Towards universal literacy

The Information Society (IS) is a new and ongoing process. The true aspiration is building Knowledge Societies, and Learning Societies. In this framework, education in and for the information society should be an education that:
- Ensures universal literacy and basic, relevant, and quality education, for the entire population, both in the North and in the South.
- Promotes and aims to articulate learning in and outside the school system, formal, nonformal, and informal learning, in the family, in the community, in the workplace, in every space where there is production, creation, recreation, social participation, etc.
- Takes advantage of all tools and technologies available - not only ICTs - towards integral communication and learning strategies for all and for all ages.
- Teaches a critical approach, selection and use of information and knowledge; to identify, produce, and disseminate relevant information and knowledge; to develop autonomous and complex thinking; to actively participate in transformative social action.
- Defends and embodies the right to education in its practices, understanding the right to education fundamentally as the right for all to learn, to learn to learn, and to learn throughout life through all available means.

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Web sites
@LIS: Alianza para la Sociedad de la Información entre Europa y América Latina http://www.alis-online.org
Commonwealth of Learning http://www.col.org/
Cumbre Mundial de la Sociedad de la Información (CMSI) http://www.itu.int/wsis/index-es.html
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Instituto Fronesis http://www.fronesis.org
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Related texts
▸ Rosa María Torres Over Two Decades of 'Education for All' ▸ Más de dos décadas de 'Educación para Todos' 

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