LITERACY? YES. BUT WHEN?
	If efforts to teach the millions of illiterates to read and write are to succeed, some questions must be answered. Focus, a four-page dossier, looks at the scope of illiteracy worldwide, at who should be targeted, at what works and at why governments are not more active.

Edito - The splendid view from my office at UNESCO headquarters in Paris evokes many facets of the human activity. In the distance the Palais de Chaillot houses museums that cater to our need to understand older civilizations and to enjoy the work of creative human imagination through the centuries. On my side of the Seine soars the Eiffel Tower, a monument to science, technology and industrial progress. Closer still is the rear courtyard of the École Militaire where cavalry officers exercise horses in the morning and bands play on summer afternoons. Below my window is the Place de Fontenoy, named after an eighteenth century battle in the War of the Austrian Succession. It is a nice irony that UNESCO, an organization dedicated to constructing the defences of peace, is surrounded on all sides by streets named for famous military figures, three maréchaux de France, Frédéric de Lowendal, Maurice de Saxe and Philippe de Ségur, and one admiral, le bailli Pierre de Suffren.

Such contradictions are not unique to Paris. Any large city reminds us that Tolstoy's famous title War and Peace sums up the history of humankind and a basic tension of the human condition. What changes with time is the nature of war and peace. New weapons make war even more devastating and cause more casualties among civilians than among combatants. Economic and social development makes peace even more agreeable for the rich but seems to widen the gap between them and the poor. Furthermore the multiplication of civil
wars and local conflicts traps large numbers of people in poverty, interferes with the economic activities of adults and prevents the education of children.
As the stakes of the choice between war and peace become higher, encouraging people to seek peace rather than war becomes increasingly important. Education cannot carry the whole burden of this task but it can make a contribution. This first issue of Education Today draws the lessons from UNESCO's long experience in promoting education for a culture of peace. One unsurprising conclusion is that young people learn to live together in peace as much from the atmosphere of the school and the attitudes of the teachers as from the curriculum.

John Daniel
Assistant Director-General for Education