COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
INTERSTATE COMMITTEE ON PROMOTION OF KNOWLEDGE &
ADULT EDUCATION



Statement

by

Prof. Dr. Yefim Malitikov
Chairman of the Common Wealth of Independent States Interstate Committee
on Promotion of Knowledge Adult Education

at the
World Summit on Sustsinable Dvelopment

Johannesburg-South Africa
30 August 2002

Necessary Priorities of State Policy

Instruments for developing Human Resources in Contemporary Forms of Education

Considerable parts of mankind's declarations are less than efficient. Declarations often remain solely on paper even if they were accepted by states and governments at high level forums, summits, and conferences.

After 10 years the RIO declarations have yet to reach its established goals.

Why?
The answer is this:

We are all actively working and brainstorming at meetings such as this one today. But this has a short-term synergetic effect.

Not having direct contact and being under the pressure of internal problems and completely occupied with others, we transfer over to a less effective uncoordinated correspondence not in real time, but when we are able and have completely modest technical and often non-contemporary instruments.

Even now the world, represented by states and governments does not utilize the already existing modern effective instruments for the realization of decision making and does not synchronize the fully measurable results.

It is without doubt that we are not yet ready to operate as a single global electronic government; however, this is not due to a low level of technical process as both technology and technological means are already at the disposal of humankind.

The problem is the mental passivity and conservativeness of management processes and the analogous thought at the beginning of the Digital Age.

The results of the Summit for Sustainable Development are not guaranteed. Interim technology is outdated and cannot keep up with the achievements of an informed society.

Today, the possibility for workable global cooperation in all areas through actual or national teleports has been created.

Sustainable Development-an unstable constant

Sustainability constantly balances between two systems of weight. On one side of the system are the inherent problems of civilization. These are constantly renewed and found in the unforeseeable forms of epidemics and natural disasters. Giving equal weight to the other side of the system is our knowledge and prognoses of the approaching changes of global situations. These forces are constantly at odds out of necessity.

Most importantly, existing knowledge is spreading and being applied far too slowly to fit the needs of humanity. Getting around this sluggishness is as crucial as maintaining human life itself. We simply are not meeting the requirements in combating the problems of sustainable development. We are settling for obsolete and ordinary forms of knowledge.

About 15% of knowledge is renewed every year. This process is accelerating.

In just six years this informational stagnation, or, unused modern knowledge, will leave the common person intellectually bankrupt. A society devised of this kind of individual will eventually find its economic and political institutions bankrupt as well.

The role of education in sustainable development cannot be limited to higher education only.

No constitution or budget can create conditions of necessary change in our education and information.

The role of education in sustainable development of humanity is regarded inadequately and hardly considers the future. It has been largely judged by the old classroom formula of simply "Education for life" which was somewhat sufficient for those desiring a knowledge renewal once every thirty years.

Life now demands a different formula

Continuing Education, or "Education throughout life" is the belief that education can continue throughout the entire duration of a human's life.

It must become a state policy priority, a constituent of laws and constitutions, and then a mental installation of human civilization.

Implementation of this formula in all state efforts is needed to meet the problems.

The traditional approach to education has resulted in absolute illiteracy of 880 million of people. In addition, another 4.5 milliard do not even possess proper sufficiency for twenty-first century modern knowledge.

The situation with teachers is not less serious. It is even worsened by the deficit of 15 million teachers out of 59 million.

These conditions lead to 3 billion people who live on less than $2 a day.

The educational budget deficit of the planet constitutes 6% of gross domestic product in every country and the whole world.

Advanced science and practice already has the tools necessary to help mankind cope with this deficit ever cheaper and faster.

The current discussion is about the newest technologies with the use of satellite distance interactive communication.

Virtual technology in this situation does not give up the classroom form of interaction.

Earlier, many of the changes were related to the sphere of NGO activities and did not enter the priorities of the government. The move to this new knowledge without the support of the government will take intolerably more time.

Cooperation of NGOs and the government in this sphere is a bridge to the future.

In the CIS in 1997, within the framework of the Interstate Committee for the knowledge promotion and adult education Government works together with NGO.

Through their combined strengths the Modern University for the Humanities was created, the largest in Russia, CIS, Europe and the 5th in the world, spreading its 372 branches to 328 cities with its own planetary satellite teleport.

The services of this teleport are already used today by more than 2000 NGOs in the UN/NGO/IRENE network, created on the initiative of the UN in Brazil in 2001.

This kind of education should be included in the list of Priorities of the Summit, together with the protection of the environment, economic and social development.

We are demonstrating this both as a variant of partnership Type II and as an excellent example for work, government programs and state policies.