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Lucia A Keegan  11/07/2006 03:02:15 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

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UNCLAS        PARIS 07256

SIPDIS
cxparis:
    ACTION: UNESCO
    INFO:   POL ECON AMBU AMB AMBO DCM SCI

DISSEMINATION: UNESCOX
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: AMB: LVOLIVER
DRAFTED: EDU: SLOVEJOY
CLEARED: NONE

VZCZCFRI728
RR RUEHC RUCNSCO
DE RUEHFR #7256/01 3111117
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 071117Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2906
INFO RUCNSCO/UNESCO COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 007256 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
 
FOR ECA/A - MARYANNE CRAVEN AND TOM FARRELL 
FOR USAID - JOE CARNEY AND BUFF MACKENZIE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: UNESCO SCUL
SUBJECT: UNESCO - PILOT PORTAL PROJECT PROPOSAL ON RECOGNIZED HIGHER 
EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 
 
 
¶1. Summary.  On November 13-14, 2006, UNESCO is hosting a meeting of 
the pilot project steering committee for the UNESCO portal on 
recognized higher education institutions.  Judith Eaton, President 
of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, is the designated 
US steering committee member.  This portal pilot project idea came 
out of discussions during the UNESCO/OECD cross-border higher 
education guidelines negotiations, which led to the issuance of the 
non-binding guidelines by the two bodies last year. End Summary. 
 
¶2. During the guidelines negotiations, the U.S. successfully argued 
to de-link the information project from the guidelines document 
itself, and also that any information project to support the 
guidelines' implementation and goals should consist only of a simple 
portal limited to a website link, which would direct users to the 
information on recognized higher education institutions created by 
national authorities within their countries.  During the guidelines 
negotiations, the U.S. informally offered to participate in the 
pilot portal project as one of the pilot countries, in part so that 
we could maintain involvement in its development.  The USG also 
believes that it is important to have a mix of countries in the 
pilot, including some with highly developed higher education and 
accreditation systems, as well as countries that need assistance in 
that area.  State's ECA Bureau is looking into possibilities for 
providing modest funding and/or advice by U.S. experts for the pilot 
project, so that we have a defined role as a stakeholder and also to 
demonstrate our support for capacity building in this area. 
 
¶3. The USG and others, mainly Australia and Great Britain, opposed 
efforts during the guidelines negotiations for a UNESCO created and 
controlled database that could potentially supersede national 
authorities in determining quality standards for higher education as 
well as being very expensive, and virtually impossible to maintain 
as accurate. 
 
¶4. OECD input:  The OECD has largely allowed UNESCO to take the lead 
on future steps for the Guidelines.  The United States has made it 
clear that formal implementation of the Guidelines was never agreed 
upon, but was willing to allow for a portal that simply redirected 
users to appropriate national authorities.  At an OECD Ministerial 
on Higher Education in Athens, Greece this past June, an 
international education scheme was supported by several countries, 
particularly in Europe, as the future for higher education.  U.S. 
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was quick to explain that 
 
SIPDIS 
the basis of the U.S. higher education system is so vastly different 
than the rest of the world, that such a system would not be 
effective in the United States. 
 
¶5. Last summer, during a meeting of the steering committee, the 
committee asked UNESCO to reduce the cost of this proposal to fully 
reflect the concept of a narrow informational portal rather than an 
expansive database.  However, the current draft portal proposal does 
not reflect that request.  The UNESCO proposal requests over 
$400,000 to fund the project, although one UNESCO higher education 
official has indicated that they are not seeking the whole amount in 
monetary contributions, and could accept technical or in-kind 
assistance as a portion of the support. 
 
¶6. In addition, no agreement was reached on the number of pilot 
projects that would be funded or that African countries would 
receive priority, as outlined in the agenda for the November 
meeting.  Concerns have been expressed that this approach by UNESCO 
takes decision-making authority away from nations that volunteered 
to participate in the pilot, including the US, and transfers it to 
the Secretariat.  This could lead to inclusion of countries in the 
pilot that have no capacity to contribute either financially or 
technically, and which may produce a wish list of what they would 
want in a major database rather than using the model of a simple 
portal.   In addition, phrases in the draft proposal provided for 
the meeting, such as "structured access", and "protecting students 
from misleading guidance and information, rogue providers, and 
qualifications of limited validity" also raise concerns for the USG. 
 Such terminology suggests that the Secretariat may wish to decide 
what is "misleading guidance" and who are "rogue providers" in a 
centrally prepared list of institutions, rather than having the 
agreed-upon simple informational portal that links to national sites 
controlled by each country's national education authorities (whether 
governmental or non-governmental.)  The latter structure would allow 
users to make their own decisions regarding educational providers 
based on the information provided by national authorities. 
 
¶7. In order to ensure that this portal remains only informational 
and does not become a UNESCO controlled database, the USG may have 
to intervene at this steering committee meeting to make those 
points.  The USG should also reinforce the point that results from 
the pilot project for the portal should be gathered and assessed, 
before any effort is made to expand this activity beyond the initial 
pilot. 
 
¶8. In addition, the USG could consider providing targeted support to 
the pilot portal initiative, which would give us a degree of 
"ownership" in the process, more information and control, and would 
also demonstrate our support for capacity building in this area. 
This could be accomplished either through actual dollars or in-kind 
support or both.  In addition, the Council for Higher Education 
Accreditation (CHEA) has also offered $10,000 to UNESCO for this 
project.  We understand that UNESCO initially expressed reluctance 
to accept non-governmental funding for this activity, but we might 
want to encourage UNESCO to reconsider that position.  In addition, 
UNESCO may be open to accepting expert assistance as a form of 
support for this activity.  Perhaps ECA and the Mission could offer 
the assistance of a Fulbright senior specialist, or a US Speaker 
(arranged by IIP or directly by our posts under the speaker program) 
to consult either at UNESCO, or in one or more of the pilot 
countries for this project, to help them develop or improve their 
higher education information systems in-country. 
 
¶9. Also, having the USAID global learning portal provide a 
technological "home" for the portal activity, if this is feasible, 
is another opportunity to have more control over this project and 
reduce its costs.  We would need to explore this with USAID and with 
UNESCO.  Finally, CHEA has also offered to advise and consult 
informally on this project, as an "in-kind" contribution and perhaps 
other U.S. higher education and accreditation associations would be 
willing to advise as well. 
 
¶10. The USG needs to closely monitor how this pilot project is 
developed so that it is constituted as a simple informational portal 
for users to access higher education information created by national 
authorities rather than a major new central database.  Expansion of 
this project beyond a portal could result in UNESCO attempting to 
dictate what constitutes a quality higher educational institution, 
thus superseding national authority and even leading to 
international regulation of higher education institutions, which the 
USG strongly opposes.  Given the comments made during the 
Francophonie meeting this summer that education should not be a 
"commercial good," have raised our concerns about the possibility of 
efforts being made to remove education from world trade rules and 
the potential for development of a convention or similar instrument 
to "protect" education, similar to the UNESCO convention protecting 
cultural diversity.  For these reasons, it is a high priority for 
the USG to monitor the portal project and work, as we did with the 
guidelines themselves, to shape it into an acceptable form. 
OLIVER