Education for All. South East Asia and South Pacific Sub-Regional Conference Report (Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, October 14-19, 1990).

Overview & Synopsis

In October 1990, 223 delegates from 22 nations of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific met in Australia to discuss plans and strategies for achieving universal education in the region. To inform planning and action, the conference defined five groups of people for whom universal education is a priority: indigenous people and minorities, people in poverty, people in remote areas, people with disabilities, and women and girls. This report contains summaries of 25 workshops and 25 round table discussions that examined education for each of these groups from the standpoint of access and equity, curriculum and professional development, literacy, elementary education, and the school/work interface and continuing education. These sessions included descriptions of how various countries are addressing each of these issues, and recommendations for further action. Appendices contain background information on the region; proposed areas for cooperative action; conference organization; highlights of country reports; Australia's national literacy strategy; conference participants; and the opening address. Outlines of objectives, inputs, outcomes, indicators of progress, and constraints for strategies in the following areas of concern are presented in tables: early childhood interventions for literacy, improvements in elementary school literacy and numeracy, functional literacy to generate income, literacy education for women, literacy and numeracy for disabled adolescents and adults, development of educational materials for literacy in the mother tongue, provision of technology for literacy in remote areas, producing learning materials for literacy, and training teachers and personnel for literacy. (SV)