(A) Study on the Expansion of Education Development Agenda in UNICEF since 2000 from the UNESCO’s Lifelong Learning Perspective

2021년 2월

서울대학교 대학원

협동과정 글로벌교육협력 전공

한리라(Leera HAN)

After the ‘Education for All (EFA)’ initiative involved UNICEF, UNDP,

and the World Bank under the coordination of UNESCO, the Post-EFA and the

Education 2030, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) engaged more

organizations including UNFPA, UNHCR, UN Women, and the ILO. In

addition, the expansion of discourses in basic education into lifelong learning

has led to the inclusion of adult education, formal education, non-formal

education, and informal education. Nevertheless, discussions on lifelong

learning have been focused mainly on UNESCO and the World Bank, and there

have been limitations that discussion on other organizations focused largely on

governance in the EFA era. Likewise, UNICEF, which has been steadily

participating in global agendas from the EFA, expanded its intervening scope

into development areas while realizing the value of education in humanitarian

crises. Therefore, the need for research on its direction has been raised. This

study tries to look at how UNESCO’s integrated lifelong learning approach has

been reflected in the UNICEF’s policy direction.

First of all, educational discourses in the 2000s marked the interconnection

among survival, human development, social development, and interventions

from a life-cycle perspective. UNICEF has interlinked material support, which

saves children’s lives and protects their rights, to the development of children’s

capabilities and society. In addition, the life-cycle perspective has helped to

provide balanced approach to protection and growth by understanding early

childhood, childhood, and adolescence distinctively. Meanwhile, this approach

takes comprehensive consideration on culture, environment, policy, and

stakeholders that a child confronts in each development stage. In the case of

early childhood which UNICEF puts the largest efforts on, the circular learning

was observed through parenting skills and capacity building of adolescents,

parents, and teachers who affect children’s growth and learning.

In 2000s, UNICEF has expanded its intervening areas and beneficiaries,

focus on adolescents, and skill-based learning. In particular, for the sake of

environment, peace and economic participation, it wanted to deliver related

knowledge and skills; and to create the society where learners can grow and

practice their agencies through policy interventions. With a balanced interest in

early childhood and adolescence, it led discussions on their learning and work,

and participation. Discussions on non-formal or alternative learning have

become active, as they considered the real lives of youths in low-and middleincome countries and humanitarian crises. Skill learning is in line with the

topics of post-EFA and the SDG4. UNICEF organized diverse skills including

those called ‘life-skills’ and newly emerging technologies in the 21st century

into a framework and made them a right for children to respond to social

changes.

However, on the contrary to the direct mention of lifelong learning in the

Education 2030, it is skeptical if UNICEF is actively engaging in the discourse

of lifelong learning. The frequency of mentioning lifelong learning does not

accord to how much UNICEF supports this concept, but the limited discussion

on lifelong learning made this organization hard to be one of active supporters.

Therefore, it is necessary to keep eyes on UNICEF to see whether its

interventions in education and child development ultimately meet lifelong

learning. Especially, this study tries to interpret its policy direction in education

with Delors’ for pillars of education as a representative framework helping

understand lifelong learning clearly and multi-dimensionally.

As a result, maternal health, birth, pre-school education, primary and

secondary education and the learning of adults to care children were understood

as cognitive and non-cognitive skills development for ‘learning to know’. The

aspects of cultivating positive attitudes, personality, confidence, and agency by

solving problems encountered in everyday life are in line with ‘learning to do’.

In UNICEF’s specialized field of emergency relief, socialization and emotional

development in early childhood; and peacebuilding programs after support

‘learning to live together’ in that they strengthen internal and external

capabilities to coexist with others. Ultimately, UNICEF’s policy direction

supporting the process of children’s growth into a youth with self-efficacy and

responsibility should be consistent with ‘learning to be’.

The purpose of the study was to know where UNICEF is situated in global

educational agenda related to lifelong learning. In this respect, UNICEF is more

actively involved in the global education development agenda, extending its

commitment even to adult learning in the process of increasing its interest from

early childhood to adolescence. When it comes to its comparative advantage, it

should focus on laying the foundation on beneficiaries’ motivation for

persistent learning by overcoming ‘learning poverty’ in humanitarian risks.