Plan Europe 2000, Project 1: Educating Man for the 21st Century - Böcker

It is with much pleasure that I introduce this first volume in a series of Topics in Gastroenterology aimed at the intelligent clinician. Dr. Peter Banks is first and foremost a clinician and teacher and therefore an ideal lead-off author. His very helpful review of pancreatitis is based not only on a thorough assimilation of clinical and experimental evidence but also on his long clinical practice in university hospitals and in private practice. Dr. Banks understands what we clinicians need to know about the patho­ physiology of this challenging disorder. I found much practical informa­ tion in this volume to help me in thinking about my own patients, and I recommend it with enthusiasm. Howard M. Spiro, M.D. vii Preface In the preparation of this book, I have made a special effort to provide detailed clinical information on the care of the patient with pancreatitis. The usefulness of newer diagnostic tests such as amylase/creatinine clearance ratio, ERCP, diagnostic ultrasound, and C-T scan has been carefully evaluated. Particular attention has been devoted to the manage­ ment of the more difficult therapeutic problems such as severe protracted pancreatitis, pancreatitis of unknown etiology, pancreatic pseudocyst, and pancreatic insufficiency. Points of controversy regarding medical and surgical alternatives in the treatment of acute and chronic pancreatitis have been reviewed with specific recommendations for therapy. In all discussions, emphasis has been placed on basic physiological principles that govern treatment. A comprehensive and current bibliography accom­ panies each chapter.

precise, appeared until the recent crisis - to many Americans from the East of America's America, as the whole of America seemed to Europeans of a century ago: extreme and strange, full of violent contrasts, contradictory, over-advanced, neo primitive and savage, a land where everything is possible, the hippies and the religious-political fundamentalism of the Orange County, Marcuse, Angela Davis and Norman Brown, Esalen, the new consciousness. Alan Watts and Carlos Castaneda, as well as Patricia Hearst and the Sym­ bionese Liberation Army, Richard Nixon and his men, the Satan religion, outrageous crimes such as that of the Manson "family" and incredibly scan­ dalous business deals. For better or worse, California appears as a sort of preview of the European society of the future: the land of the Western World with the greatest immigration and population growth, with enormous cities which in the textbooks of your childhood were hardly even mentioned, e.g. Los Angeles, or were not mentioned at all, as in the case of San Diego and San Jose, a considerable urban development which has taken place almost overnight.

In "Plan Europe 2000," launched by the European Cultural Foundation, the first project is devoted to education. This project sets out to isolate the principal features, and to sketch the "image" of the educational system in the year 2000. It is not a matter of "forecasting," for that would imply that the modes of educating people in the next thirty years are predeter­ mined and subject to the operation of factors that must be respected like the laws of an inevitable evolution. We should be trying to unveil what is to come. Nor is the enterprise a project based on the options considered to be most desirable, which would imply that man has an entirely free will and is capable of dominating anything that might oppose that will. We should then be trying to "dictate" what we want to exist in the year 2000. It would be the act of a demiurge. The project is in fact a long-term prospective effort, which must take into consideration· - major constraints and unyielding tendencies, scarcely susceptible of significant change; - data and factors that can be more or less freely manipulated but not ignored or eradicated; - priorities dictated by the limitations of time and means; - the authors' freedom of action, subject to the above limitations, and in any event to the following one: they must not conflict with European aspirations, even the latent ones; they must not outrage mental atti­ tudes that can only be modified by persuasion.

When considering future trends in educational and vocational orientation we must constantly bear in mind, in as concrete a way as possible, that schools form an integral part of society as a whole. To point out that education and society are inseparable concepts has of course become almost a ritual statement in the majority of studies of future developments in education. All too often however "society" becomes an allegorical figure to which characteristics can be attributed varying with the tradition of thought adhered to by each writer. This figure is given a part to play in the plot which we are trying to unravel, but it remains allegorical. The theatre is furthermore closed to the public. Teachers and taught, pedagogic experts and philosophers of education, are alone together and share the functions of author, actors, producer, audience, and critics. To seek a better future for education is to try to improve the quality of a performance given in camera, to give each character a role which is most satisfying to the mind and above all to the emotions and in which the most noble sentiments can be expressed in the cause of the highest ideals. The theatri­ cal and gratuitous nature of university life, and lyrical statements about the future of the universities, were characteristic aspects of traditional frameworks.

It is difficult for us today to imagine that equal educational opportunity, with which we are so deeply preoccupied, was at one time considered to be if not an evil at least a futile objective, and that those who held such an opinion were completely insincere and even disinterested. For a vertically stratified society equality of education had to be opposed be­ cause it would disturb an equilibrium as vital as that of a building. In the Middle Ages only the Church was able to look for new members at the bottom of the social ladder, since ecclesiastical office was not inherited by birth. But efforts in this direction were necessarily very limited, even if only because of the material obstacles to such an aim. Equality of education, as well as any other type of equality could not even be imagined by the aristocracy whose very existence would have been threatened. Its initial indifference was followed by active opposition. When it became possible to formulate the question of the diffusion of education, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the principle itself met with a fundamental objection. The ruling class, idle by its very nature, feared that the workers and especially those on the land would abandon their productive labours, now felt to be degrading, and swell the ranks of the parasites in the cities.

In instituting its prospective studies the European Cultural Founda­ tion has to some extent gone against tradition. Until now those who were deeply committed to the idea of a European Community looked into the past rather than into the future for bases on which the com­ munity could be integrated. However, if we want a European society to become a reality it must be built on the basis of shared fundamental values. The majority of publications dealing with a unified or inte­ grated Europe have until now accepted that this foundation guarantee­ ing the stability of a future European society should be found in certain common elements of the history of the European nations. The futurological studies instituted by the European Cultural Foun­ dation have not rejected this mode of approach outright. They have respected the historical framework indispensable to any futurological undertaking. But the research and discussions of the groups working within the framework of Plan Europe 2000 offer increasing support to the conviction expressed by Gaston Deurinck in the first words of his introduction to the present study: "The future does not exist .. thf> future is to be created, and before being created, it must be conceived, it must be invented, and finally willed" ..

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Primary education in Europe, as in the United States and other conti­ nents, is passing through a period of profound change, affecting some of the fundamental educational aims at primary school level and teaching structure, content and methods. The purpose of this study is to sketch a broad picture of the Euro­ pean educational scene which may be brought about by the impact of innovation in industrialised countries. We are only too aware of the difficulties inherent in our task. Even when projections and forecasts are firmly rooted in an analysis of existing data, they are liable to be contradicted by the facts. We shall attempt to allow for those alternative situations which may provide the context for the organisation and functioning of primary education. We make no claim to portray the European primary school at the end of the twentieth or at the beginning of the twenty-first century. We shall do no more than analyse existing achievements and experiments based on research in the associated fields of education, psychology and sociology and from this analysis extrapolate a series of forecasts based on objective factors of a social and intellectual nature, offering realistic hypotheses for the future. Our aim is to provide sound guidelines for those who are to build a better future for our children.

The educational study presented here is an attempted synthesis of work carried out over the past two years by different people each of whom in his or her own special field of activity has enquired into the means of implementing a policy of permanent education. Although I naturally assume entire responsibility for the final text, the latter must, however, be regarded as the culmination of collective work. Huguette Flamand and Fram;ois Lebouteux have together with myself been responsible for the development of the project in all its stages. We have benefited from the contributions of Messrs. Amiot, Antoine, Balcon, Berbain, Mrs. de Boissieu, Mr. Boulanger, Mrs. Castaguo, Messrs. Cousin, Durand, Elie, Guigou, Hautenauve, Hum- bert jean, Mrs. Knecht, Messrs. Littoz-Baritel, Malglaive, Perriault, Miss Remy, Mr. Schmidt. With their agreement, their texts, a list of which is given in an appendix, have been integrated into the study without specific mention. Others who have been kind enough, at our request, to assume the thankless role of adviser and critic at various stages in the course of this work are Mrs. Puybasset, Messrs.Caspar, Girod de l'Ain, Migne, Palmade, Pechenart and Sicard-Alliot. I thank them all here, hoping that I have in no way betrayed their intentions and think they will find in this text a faithful reflection of their ideas and the echo of their own concerns. Finally, we have benefited from the many contacts which we were able to make in France and abroad.

This volume has been prepared in the framework of Project 1: "Educating Man for the 21st Century" of Plan Europe 2000, sponsored by the European Cultural Foundation. While most of the studies launched under this Project deal with specific aspects or levels of education the present volume attempts to provide a more global view of educational futures and their relationships to alternative futures of the overall socio-economic system. It should not be considered as a general integration or synthesis· of the different studies of the Education Project of the European Cultural Foundation - although it draws on them as well as other recently published documents. Rather, it should be regarded as one of several possible approaches, analytical tools, and incentives to the study and open discussion of educational problems seen in a long-term perspective. The volume is the result of a collective effort of a multinational team of researchers. A colloquium of some sixty participants, meeting at the Uni­ versity of York in October 1972, provided critiques and comments to the first version of the report. But only the authors themselves claim responsibil­ ity for the methodology of the study, and the opinions and conclusions expressed therein. These do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsors of the volume, the European Cultural Foundation and the Scientific Committee of its Education Project. • Such a synthesis will appear as the concluding report of the Project.

The Steering Committee for the Plan Europe 2000, Project 1: Education, invited the working group to analyse the problems of technical and vocational education projected over the next 30 years, both at se­ condary school and at university level. This report summarises the findings of approximately two years' research and discussion by the group, coordinated by the undersigned. It is in fact a combined report, although one chapter - the eighth­ is devoted specifically to university problems. This we consider to be amply justified by the nature of the subjects discussed: it is difficult to make a clear-cut distinction between solutions on the secondary level and solutions on the post-secondary level, especially when they are projected into the future. The group organised its work as follows: it consulted the literature to the extent possible and sought replies to a comprehensive analytical questionnaire from a wide sample of experts in different countries (the composition of the sample is described in the opening section of Appendix A); it arranged many meetings with qualified persons for discussions, as well as visits by individuals or small groups to training institutions in several European countries to meet experts in this field and it took part in national and international congresses and conferen­ ces on technical and/or vocational training and associated problems.

In 1965 Mr. Raymond Poignant published a comparative study, entitled "Education in the Common Market Countries", of the organi­ sation and state of development of education in the six countries of the Community and in three industrialised countries: the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR. Mr. Poignant, at present Director of the International Institute for Educational Planning (UNESCO), compiled the material for this study when he was Chairman of a committee set up by the EEC Institute for University Studies. Since then it has become a reference work for all those who wish to under­ stand the similarities and the diversity of our educational systems; it has been translated into German and English. In the preface to the first edition we expressed the wish that this work of comparative analysis should be pursued and kept up-to-date. This wish is fulfilled in the work we are now introducing, and which was undertaken by Mr. Poignant pursuant to an agreement between the European Cultural Foundation and the International Institute for Educational Planning. It should be emphasised that this is not simply a revised edition of the previous work. The scope of the book has been enlarged, and Japan and Sweden are now included in the list of countries examined; more­ over the perspective is different.