An Impact of UNESCO's Influence

The International Institute for Sustainable Development has published a new report titled

How Information and Communications Technologies Can Support Education for Sustainable Development: Current uses and trends

IISD describes the report in the following way:

As part of IISD's involvement with Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth and the UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, this paper presents a brief history, and identifies current uses and trends for deploying ICTs, primarily in the formal Kindergarten to Grade 12 education system, with a focus on the online environment. It considers three main questions: (1) Why do ICTs need to be considered as a critical tool in education for sustainable development (ESD)?; (2) What ICTs are currently being used by educators and learners?; and (3) What can we expect to see in the near future?

UNESCO has a program on ICT and Education, which combines its expertise in Education and that in Communications and Information. That program produces information from UNESCO headquarters in Paris, from its Bangkok regional office, from the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE)in Moscow, and from other decentralized UNESCO Centers and Institutes.

However, as the IICD report indicates, UNESCO influences other organizations to produce information complementary to that which it can produce internally. Indeed, the global community involved in ICT in education dwarfs that internal to UNESCO, or even those who can be involved directly in UNESCO meetings and publications. Many members of this larger global community are influenced by UNESCO, producing materials in support of UNESCO's programs and activities.

Australian Kids at e-learning,
Photo: Mario Borg, Copyright UNESCO