Felicia OPARA, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Educational Development in Nigeria: The Role of International Governmental and Non- Governmental Organisations

Education is indeed a tool for character training and molding. Sound education develops in the recipients’ position attitudes and changes their behaviours for the better. Through education, students learn to listen to others and to respect their views and opinions. In school also, learners are trained to embrace dialogue as a way of resolving differences instead of taking up arms, in order to contribute their quota to the stability and unity of the nation. Education has become one of the most important instruments for the attainment of rapid socio-economic, political, scientific and technological development in modern societies. In fact there is usually a high correlation between the overall level of development of any given society and system of education ( Samuel 1996). At the nation level, for building a united, independent and wealthy egalitarian society which is capable of maintaining its traditions and values. This paper traces the history of educational development in Nigeria and the role played by international governmental and non-governmental organizations like the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), African Union (AU) and the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) in the development of education in Nigeria . The paper looks at the characteristics of formal, informal and non-formal education. It stresses the nature and importance of education and also discusses the process, forms and systems of education in Nigeria. Suggestions on how to move the educational sector in Nigeria forward are also highlighted.

Internationalizing Adult Literacy Education in Nigeria:An Assessment of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1946-2010

Models and Elements of the Role of Head Teachers in School

Currently, aspects of the organization and functioning of management teams are evolving from their duties as a result of the training they receive during the teaching period. In this sense, the roles of head teachers in schools are undergoing profound changes in most member countries of both the EU and the countries of the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Area. In Spain, from the standpoint of quality education, we face new challenges because “it is a key factor in our country’s development and a major challenge for teaching. Their improvement has to do largely with the proper management of schools, something that has been widely studied in recent decades". But what do we mean by head teachers? Are they merely a legal representative or do their duties and obligations go beyond that? By taking a closer look at the current legislation in Spain, in order to discuss the organization and operation of a school, we see certain aspects that are intended to provide a stable framework of reference. In this case, the most important basic principles of education are: the requirement to provide quality education to all citizens of both genders at all levels of education (equality and equity); the need for all components of the education community to work together to achieve that goal (effort from the educational community); a determined commitment to educational aims set by the EU for the coming years. The fundamental educational objectives established by the European Union and UNESCO are as follows: a) To improve the quality and effectiveness of education systems and training, this involves: improving teacher training, developing skills for the society, ensuring access to information and communication technologies for everybody. b) To facilitate widespread access to education and training systems, which involves building an open learning environment to help make learning more attractive and promote active citizenship. c) Open these systems to the outside world, which requires strengthening links with working life, increasing exchanges and mobility, and strengthening European cooperation. The motivations that lead me to develop my work are related to the conviction of the importance of exchanging views and practices in action within professional groups involved in equivalent performance, so as to facilitate reflective processes on my own practice.

Kant’s Influence on World Peace and Unesco’s Role on World Education: Mexico’s Impact

Isaias RIVERA, Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM), Mexico

History has taught us that the closer humans come together the more they influence each other’s ideas. The growing interdependence of human actions in history has influenced the creation of a structure that regulates human interaction. Rights are the set of ideas that establish rules among men and the actions that bring them together. The idea of peace is practiced by sovereign individuals, together these individuals make formulas that render rights in society and propagate peace among peoples. Throughout Immanuel Kant’s political writings, the idea of autonomy and men being free is manifested as a right. However, societies regardless of their periphery or core status have needed a body of regulation that dictates respect among one another. The enormous task of integrating individuals and ideals together has been assigned to education. As education has progressed, information has expanded and human rights have come to be understood. The quest for peace as the end of all hostilities is a political process that requires all participants to first seek a ground for education. As a direct result of World War I, from 1920 to 1946 the first mechanical attempt at world order existed under the name of The League of Nations. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles approximately twenty two or twenty nine Nation States (depending on technicalities) united to seek possible solutions to territorial and unconcluded peace treaty issues that previous international quarrels had created. One of the League’s bodies was the Committee for Intellectual Co-operation which is the ancestor of the now known United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), made initial efforts to present a cosmopolitan view based on educational-based activities. After much struggle the League of Nations project collapses but not without paving the initial road to UNESCO´s realization in November 16, 1945. This paper will examine how Kant´s philosophy has been used and interpreted by UNESCO and how UNESCO has influenced education in Mexico. It is my understanding that Kant´s philosophical and political reflection and his quest for mankind’s advancement through reason and autonomy had a great influence in the creation of modern education and its focus on justice and human rights. Even though the League of Nations and thereafter the UN were created about one hundred thirty years after Kant’s death, the reflection of perpetual peace and cosmopolitan view have great parallel ideologically to that of the world order presented by the international institutions mentioned here. UNESCO’s ideology is strongly based on the purpose of developing a universal moral standard of value. It is my belief that Kant’s idea for world peace is a blueprint for the basis of UNESCO’s model for world education.

[Part 2: session 2.15.]

The symposium about “University and teachers´ education” aims at analyzing the history and the prospective factors of the teachers´ education since the university as institution, with the question: What impact did university exert since the teacher´s education in the cultural-educational transformation in the education of the politic leaders, the leadership of the scientific-technologic, the nations´ training and if the universities, since the faculties which train teachers, have the ability, from the autonomy and the freedom of thought, to investigate and to innovate and train the generation of teachers that will lead the cultural educational changes of the changeable society of the 21st century? To the university he is admitted inside its socio-political, local, national and international context as the trainer of the personnel that directs the society with a few spaces of political power and it structures practices of political cultures. The educator is analyzed as a social actor in spaces of local and national power. One will connect the educators' forming powers with the trends of the scientific - educational advanced thought of the epoch. In addition, we must indicate that the educator's concept is assimilated as «the specialist in the educational activity and pedagogic work, but they added other concepts as intervention in politic, intellectual, social and professional in this area”.

The objective of this research is to rescue the question of hope/utopia that moves people linked to the Centro de Formação Urbano-Rural Irmã Araújo - CEFURIA of Curitiba - PR in the process of popular education developed in and through this center. The methodological approach follows the research group involved in research on the CEFURIA through a participatory research. Based on a dialogue process, we start from the principle that researchers have only a part of knowledge, which in comparison with the research subjects is complemented with the knowledge and truths and construction of new knowledge. This means a process of exchange and mutual education between researcher and researched. At first it discusses the research hope as a concept/category in popular education, developed by the CEFURIA. The investigations are based on the participation of dialogue and evaluation reports and analysis frameworks produced by the research team at the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – UNISINOS and documents produced by the CEFURIA, especially in the work CEFURIA: 25 anos fazendo história popular, Ana Inês Souza. As theoretical framework, we chose the works of Jürguen Moltmann, Ernst Bloch, Paulo Freire, Alfonso Torres Carrillo e Danilo Streck. The research showed that hope/utopia is a concept/category that pervades the entire trajectory of CEFURIA and represents the quest for building socialism, understood as a society, just, fraternal and democratic. In CEFURIA, hope is a category since its inception and has followed along its path of progress and setbacks, crises and achievements. [...] The origin of the popular struggle are the real problems experienced by the people, its beginning or its onset, is given by militant intervention of people who can not live with social injustices. That by understanding its causes, indignant and begin to work to overcome them. Some of these people do it for political conviction, others moved by faith, others are still engaged in popular struggle by both forces - faith and politics»(Souza). Hope does not deny the difficulties and impossibilities, but at the same time, it pulls people from their inertia and sets in motion. Jürgen Moltmann sees hope in the ability to cope with everything that is either static and inert. Lets hope for him to see the movement of things and the possibilities of change. Therefore, a hope and a thought that is not a utopia in the sense of a "no place", but that guide to what "has no place" and that may have it. Conclude that for CEFURIA not about waiting for a pure waiting. But a hot standby (Freire). Freire reminds us that the ontological necessity of hope needs to be articulated with practice. So the document that served as the analysis deals with the challenges of CEFURIA for these hopes become concreteness (Souza). So all of the historical trajectory of CEFURIA is marked by the pursuit of a great utopia: the hope of building socialism, understood as a society, just, fraternal and democratic.