Education?like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?is a basic human right.

That being the case, ?education stakeholders? refer equally to the unschooled as well as the learned.

On May 18, all education stakeholders are invited to ?Education Nation,? a forum to be held at the University of the Philippines National Institute for Science and Math Education (UP NISMED) Auditorium from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. The Philippine Business for Education is this forum?s lead convenor. The Foundation for Worldwide People Power is just one of hundreds of organized education reform groups actively participating in this event. Big consortiums like the League of Corporate Foundations and major NGOs like Synergeia Foundation and the Ateneo Center for Education will be there. Dr. Erlinda Pefiangco of Seameo Innotech, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres of Ateneo de Manila University, Brother Armin Luistro of De La Salle University and, of course, Dr. Emerlinda Roman of the University of the Philippines and many more of the country?s leading educators have expressed their support for this event.

Education Nation is the latest, broadest and, perhaps, the most earnest education reform effort ever organized this past decade. It draws much of its reform strategy from the report of the International Commission on Education for the 21st century to UNESCO. The report is titled ?Learning: The Treasure Within.? Mr. Jacques Delors, the commission?s chairman, points out that ?the main parties contributing to the success of educational reforms are, first of all, the local community, including parents, school heads and teachers; secondly, the public authorities; and thirdly, the international community. Many past failures have been due to insufficient involvement of one or more of these partners. Attempts to impose educational reforms from the top down, or from outside, have obviously failed. The countries where the process has been relatively successful are those that obtained a determined commitment from local communities, parents and teachers, backed up by continuing dialogue and various forms of outside financial, technical or professional assistance.?

?Learning: The Treasure Within? likewise stresses that ?learning throughout life is one of the keys to the 21st century. It identifies the ?Four Pillars? of education that serve as the foundation for life-long learning.

The first is Learning To Live Together. This pillar is emphasized much more than the last three, because it underscores education?s fundamental capacity to mitigate conflict in an intelligent and peaceful way by emphasizing that ?children should be taught to understand other people?s reactions by looking at things from their point of view. Where this spirit of empathy is encouraged in schools, it has a positive effect on young persons? social behavior for the rest of their lives.?

The second pillar is Learning To Know, which ?implies learning how to learn by developing one?s concentration, memory skills and ability to think. From infancy, young people must learn how to concentrate?on objects and on other people.?

Learning To Do is the third pillar. Its key concept is ?personal competence.? The Delors Report says that ?technological progress inevitably changes the job skills required by the new production processes. Purely physical tasks are being replaced by tasks with a greater intellectual or cerebral content such as the operation, maintenance and monitoring of machines and design and organizational tasks, as the machines themselves become more intelligent.? This pillar seeks to answer the question: ?How do we adapt so that education can equip people to do the types of work needed in the future??

The fourth pillar is Learning To Be, which submits that ?both children and young persons should be offered every opportunity for aesthetic, artistic, scientific, cultural and social discovery and experimentation, which will complete the attractive presentation of the achievements of previous generations or their contemporaries in these fields. At school, art and poetry should take a much more important place than they are given in many countries by an education that has become more utilitarian than cultural. Concern with developing the imagination and creativity should also restore the value of oral culture and knowledge drawn from children?s or adults? experiences.?

Delors says that ?in confronting the many challenges that the future holds in store, humankind sees in education an indispensable asset in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice. [Education] has a fundamental role to play in personal and social development. The Commission does not see education as a miracle cure or a magic formula opening the door to a world in which all ideals will be attained, but as one of the principal means available to foster a deeper and more harmonious form of human development and thereby to reduce poverty, exclusion, ignorance, oppression and war.?

Delors adds that ?at a time when educational policies are being sharply criticized or pushed?for economic and financial reasons?down to the bottom of the agenda, the Commission wishes to share this conviction with the widest possible audience, through its analyses, discussions and recommendations.?

[Butch Hernandez (butchhernandez@gmail.com) is the executive director of the Foundation for Worldwide People Power.]