UNESCO's major focus in education is to achieve basic education for all by 2015. The six dimensions were identified at Jomitian, Thailand in 1990 and the goals were established at the World Education Froum in Dakar, Senegal in 2000. This is the most important programme to achieve education for all by the year 2015 and UNESCO was entrusted with the overall responsibility of coordinating all international players and sustaining the global momentum.

The six goals of Education for all

1.            Expand early childhood care and education.

2.            Ensure free and compulsory primary education of good quality by 2015.

3.            Promote learning and life skills programmes for young people and adults.

4.         Expand adult literacy by 50% by 2015

5.            Eliminate Gender disparities in access to education in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achieve gender equality by 2015.

6.             Enhance educational qualities.

Achieving the goals of Education for all by year 2015 is one of the main targets of UNESCO assisted programmes Sri Lanka. The government of Sri Lanka is committed to adopt the principles of Education for All goals and take necessary steps to achieve them, having participated at these world conferences. To achieve Education for All goals by the year 2015, Sri Lanka made arrangements to plan out the activities in three phases.

Phase   I         -         2002-2003 (3years)
Phase   II        -         2005-2010 (6years)
Phase   III       -         2011-2015 (5years)
 

Sri Lanka prepared the three year plan, taking into consideration the six dimensions identified at Jomitian in 1990 and six goals agreed upon at Dakar in 2000. The EFA unit of the Ministry in collaboration with the Provincial EFA units is committed to launch and monitor the programmes in order to reach the expected targets. In future two other six years and five years plans are to be drawn up to activate the tasks needed to reach EGA targets by the year 2015. this effort is also supported by some other relevant Ministries, NGO’s and International organizations.

SOCIAL COHESION AND PEACE EDUCATION

Promotion of UNESCO’s Teachers Guide to Peace Education”, a holistic and integrated approach in all subjects of the schools curriculum, (without overburdening the curriculum, but using the existing subject, matter), where every teacher of every subject, becomes a peace educator.This guide was developed through a regional consultation of educators and intellectuals from the South Asian region and launched in Sri Lanka in 2002. This is also being piloted in India, in Udaipur and Tamil Nadu.

The Guide, which is available in Sinhala and Tamil, is being used for training by both the National Institute of Education (NIE) for pre and in service teachers and by the Ministry of Education (MOE) for in service teachers.

However, much support is still needed to enhance the work and to have appropriate impact, particularly in continuation of the programme, as also, for monitoring and assessments of its progress.The respective units in both MOE and NIE need strengthening, as also, action is needed to inspire the teaching communities to motivate themselves in achieving these objectives.The efforts require continued focus, in the short, medium and long term, to trickle down to the future generations, even in the absence of war.The guide promotes the important values of “thinking positively, the first characteristic of a peaceful person”, being compassionate and doing no harm; discovering inner peace; learning to live together; respecting human dignity and right; being true to oneself; thinking critically; resolving conflict non violently; building peace in the community and caring for the planet. (respecting the environment).    
 
Recent UNESCO Education Initiatives in Sri Lanka

• Training in Monitoring /Assessments on Education for All
• Preparation and Launching of a Teacher Trainers Manual for ICt’s in Education, in collaboration with NIE
• Inputs for policy initiatives on Technical and Vocational Education/ Higher Education
• Launching of Teacher Trainers Manual on “Education for Peace “ in Sinhala, Tamil and English
• Consultancy to support ESDFP
• Advice and participation in the preparation of National Action Plans on ECCE, adult Literacy and Life Skills. 
    
  Peace Building activities done in Sri Lanka
     
• Celebration of “International Day for Peace-21 September 2006
• Award of “ Peace Education Prize 2006” to Judge C.J. Weeramantry (Chairman, Weeramantry International Center for Peace Education)
• Award of prize for “Non Violance”2006 to Mr. Anandasangaree. (Leader, Tamil United Liberation Front)
• Promotion of “Education for Peace and Sustainable Development “
• Promotion of “Dialogue Forums” on issues related to peace building in collaboration with the Secretariat for Coordination of the Peace Process (SCOPP), in collaboration with UNESCO New Delhi.  

Information Technology Teacher Trainers' Manual

Sri Lanka has realized the need to change and have responded by launching professional development programmes to train teachers in the use of computers. The Ministry of Education (MoE) as a policy accepted introduction of It as a subject at the General Certificate of Education, ordinary Level, G.C.E (O/L). The National Institute of Education also accepted that IT, should be introduced at G.C.E. (O/L) to give students a wider selection of optional subjects and to provide early opportunity to study IT comparing with other countries. These facilities are proposed to be made available as a pilot project, through selected cluster networks of schools in the nine provinces comprising twenty-five. 

Under the UNESCO JFIT project, a model trainers’ manual on ICT for New Learning Environment was developed by the National Institute of Education. This manual was developed for ICT teachers and curriculum developers and the manual itself provides a capacity building programmes for the target group. The successive training stages envisaged in the project are presented as a model.