PRESS BRIEFING ON WORLD SUMMIT EVENT FOR SCHOOLS

PRESS BRIEFING ON WORLD SUMMIT EVENT FOR SCHOOLS

The United Nations Cybershoolbus, in partnership with the European Schoolnet, today launched the World Summit Event for Schools, a three-month long initiative to offer online activities to students around the world in order to examine the impact of communication technologies on education and human rights.

“The World Summit Event for Schools will link via the Internet thousands of students from around the world in one of the largest educational events ever attempted on the Internet”, Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this morning.

Mr. Tharoor said the Cybershoolbus, an online education component of the Department of Public Information, had initiated the programme as part of its mission to promote education about the United Nations and involve students and teachers around the world in addressing international issues.

“It also fits with the United Nations’ desire to see the benefits of the revolution in information technology spread as widely as possible and with our efforts to bridge the digital divide”, said Mr. Tharoor, noting there was still much to be done to make the benefits of communication technologies available to developing countries.

Schools in 16 countries have registered for the event, and the numbers are growing every day, said William Yotive, head of the Cyberschoolbus project and manager of the United Nations Global Teaching and Learning Project.

“Over the next three months teachers and students will be discussing the impact that information and communication technologies are having on basic human rights, such as the right to give and receive information, and the right to education”, said Mr. Yotive.

The project will culminate in the gathering of educators from more than 40 countries at the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, from 10 to 12 December.  That gathering will lay the foundation for creating a global infrastructure of school networks to help build a culture of peace.

Speaking by videoconference from Geneva, Dzidek Kedzia, Chief of Research and the Right to Development, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the Summit, timed to coincide with the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, underscored the potential contribution of information technology for human rights education.

“It is human rights education which comes as one of the basic premises for the promotion and protection of human rights”, said Mr. Kedzia.

Brigitte Parry, Networks manager for European Schoolnet, speaking by videoconference from Geneva, said the emergence of new information technologies had resulted in the growth of school networks that were turning education into a collaborative endeavour.

“Our aim is to offer better collaborative opportunities to schools and the World summit is really a unique opportunity for professionals at Schoolnet to learn from each other and expand the group to as many countries as possible”, said Ms. Parry.

Students from Geneva, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, linked by videoconference, shared their views on the World Summit Event for Schools.

“This project is going to help us outline changes which we need to meet the present era of information and communication technologies (ICT)”, said one student in Uganda.  “We are also hoping to create awareness about human rights through the Internet and we are looking forward to acquiring different forms of ICT and sharing cultural values among other students in different countries”, he added.

Another student, speaking from Geneva, said he hoped the project would enable him and other participants to help decrease the gap between those who have access to information and communication technology and those who do not.

“ICTs are something we have grown up with, so it’s up to us, added another student in Geneva.  We are responsible for how they are used in the future.  We hope that someday every Article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be true for all people everywhere and ICTs must be used to enforce that.”

Students can also participate in the project by sharing their views on information and communication technology through drawings and paintings for a poster competition being sponsored by the Cyberschoolbus.  Winning entries will be exhibited at the World Summit in Geneva.

Information on the World Summit Event for Schools and the poster competition can be obtained on the Web site of the Cyberschoolbus (www.cyberschoolbus.un.org), and the European Schoolnet (www.eun.org).

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