- University World News
Science is the basis for moving ahead on global challenges (Global)
The International Science Council (ISC) is the world’s primary non-governmental organisation for the sciences, bringing together the natural and social science organisations, including both national academies and disciplinary bodies, with a singular focus. The council’s role is to be the voice at the interface of the multilateral system and to promote its global voice for science, recognising science as a global public good. The ISC was formed by a merger of the predecessor natural and social science umbrella organisations some four years ago. Its predecessor organisations had played valuable roles in the last Cold War in supporting track two diplomacy. That included some notable achievements: its activities led eventually to the Antarctic Treaty, still the epitome of science diplomacy in international agreements, and it was a co-sponsor of the Villach Conference in 1985 in which scientists insisted that a multilateral intergovernmental response to global warming was needed, and which directly led some three years later to the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The ISC supports many global activities, ranging from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research to the World Climate Research Programme. Right from the start of the Ukraine conflict, the ISC faced a challenge: beyond condemning the invasion and the atrocities that followed, should we exclude Russian and Belarusian scientists from the community of science? Our initial response was clear – we were appalled by the events, but our obligation was to protect the global voice of science. Read more here
2. The Pie News
Adult education “not reaching those who need it most”, says UNESCO (Global)
Adult education is failing to reach those who need it most despite participation increasing across over half of UNESCO’s member states since 2018, according to a new report. The fifth edition of the Global Report on Adult Learning and Education outlines a “clear and comprehensive” picture of the state of adult learning and education across the globe, using five key pillars – policy, governance, financing, participation, and quality. “For the first time, we also introduced another layer – the three fields of learning,” Werner Mauch, the team leader for the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education, told The PIE News. “These fields of learning literacy and basic skills, vocational skills and professional development, and citizenship skills made it so we could introduce a set of questions that really captured a complete picture,” he explained. The report was unveiled at the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education held on June 15 in Marrakech, Morocco, and Mauch said that this edition of the report – which is published every three years – showed how progress varies strikingly across different geographies. For instance, many in Africa, Mauch explained, have a major concern about literacy, but in North America and Europe there is a much bigger focus on vocational skills and professional development. “It was encouraging news, especially from Africa, finding that participation is rising in a big majority of countries – while participation is not as much of an issue for instance in Scandinavia, it is still surprising that the improvement from Africa was so significant,” he commented. Read more here
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