On January 17-18, 2015, the Preparation Office of “UNESCO International Centre for Innovation in Higher Education (Shenzhen, China)”invited Xu Jieying, the former national education project officer of UNESCO Beijing Office, to conduct a training regarding Type II education agencies’ declaration to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (hereinafter referred to as “UNESCO”) as hosted by Teacher Qiang Haiyan, the Academic Director of UNESCO Preparation Office.
Based on the Integrated Comprehensive Strategy for Type II Education Agencies and Centers under the Auspices of UNESCO (hereinafter referred to as Integrated Comprehensive Strategy) released on December 2013 by UNESCO headquarters, Teacher Xu introduced the legal position of Type II education agencies and their relationship with UNESCO, the procedures and basis for declaration preparation of Type II education agencies, and also emphatically analyzed and explained the correct way to interpret the education plan of UNESCO 37C/5 (i.e. the project plan and budget from 2014-2017 of UNESCO).
Teacher Xu emphasized that Type II education agencies and centers should deal with activities within the global, regional, sub-regional or trans-regional range, and be sponsored and supported by more than one member countries or a broad coalition consisting of several member countries. Each Type II entity should contribute to the realization of the strategic plan objectives of UNESCO regulated by C/5 documents, the overall priorities of the institute, and the department or trans-department priorities and preferential themes as reflection of these contributions in functional design of an institute was of great importance to declaration. To be specific, 37C/5 planed and deployed the education plan and activities of UNESCO from 2014 to 2017 by clearly defining the course of action, expected results, performance indicators and standards based on the principal aim of “education is peace and continuous development” and therefore, it was necessary to get insight to this part, and find out integrating point with the higher education innovation themes proposed by the Preparation Office according to the management mode based on result advocated by UNESCO.
In addition, Teacher Xu made specific analysis with Course 1, which was defined to develop the education system of all countries and to provide lifelong learning opportunities for all people; besides, the first one of its 7 expected results was to strengthen the ability of all countries to formulate and implement education policies and plan under the framework of lifelong education. And the corresponding performance indicators were to modify national education policies and integrate lifelong education; modify overall national education planning; establish, strengthen and implement overall education monitoring and evaluation system; and enable the countries that confronted with crisis/disasters to benefit from the crisis intervention and reconstruction support of UNESCO. For instance, as the decentralization of education planning and decision-making power, the local education authorities of Inner Mongolia had to formulate and implement local education planning according to local conditions, and it thus became urgent to improve micro educational planning ability. Under the support of UNESCO Beijing Office and Ministry of Education and Technology of Mongolia and by the cooperation with Mongolian State University of Education, micro educational planning reference books developed by UNESCO Bangkok Office were translated and adapted, educational decision-makers of all levels were trained, and micro educational planning was included in the courses of Mongolian State University of Education.
This training provided clear action guidance for the declaration of the Preparation Office, and a wealth of references for innovation of higher education and the application of function and work design of ICT and open education resources in higher education.
Training site
