UNESCO, the World Bank, and the struggle over education for development through the lens of the Faure report (1972) and the Delors report (1996)

Authors

  • Maren Elfert University Of Alberta

Abstract

The reports Learning to be (the Faure report), published in 1972, and Learning: The treasure within (the Delors report), published in 1996, commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), are known to belong to the foundational literature on lifelong learning. This paper, which draws on primary and secondary sources, will focus on a much lesser known aspect of these reports: their views on international development. The Faure report represented a counter perspective to the dominant development discourse based on “modernization”, in that it favoured “endogenous development” and anticipated the claims of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) that called for fairer redistribution of resources from developed to developing countries. The Delors report reacted to the extension of neoliberalism to the field of development through the Washington Consensus and criticized the structural adjustment programs implemented by the IMF and the World Bank. Both reports reveal a great deal about the debates and contested ideas on development, the conflicts between educators and economists over educational planning and the shifting position of UNESCO in the multilateral arena between the 1960s and the 1990s. The author argues that both reports got entangled in the struggle over “global governance” in education for development and proved unsuccessful in asserting their worldviews against powerful counter-ideologies promoted by competing organizations such as the World Bank.

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Published

2023-02-14

How to Cite

Elfert, M. (2023). UNESCO, the World Bank, and the struggle over education for development through the lens of the Faure report (1972) and the Delors report (1996). Education in Debate: Comparative Analysis, 8, 5–21. Retrieved from https://oap.unige.ch/journals/ed/article/view/378