RI seeks world commitment to education
RI seeks world commitment to education
By Rikza Abdullah
COPENHAGEN (JP): President Soeharto urged other world leaders yesterday to throw their weight behind the "education for all" concept as one way of improving the welfare and prosperity of mankind.
"I am inviting all parties to cooperate as closely as possible to reach a consensus and to make a commitments to providing education for all -- a basic prerequisite for the advancement, welfare and prosperity of human beings -- through development," he said at an informal summit meeting on education.
The meeting, held at the Bella Center where a United Nations conference on social development is underway, was attended by heads of state of nine of the most populous developing countries, including Indonesia, India, China, Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
The meeting was held on the eve of the opening of the two-day summit of the World Conference on Social Development, which will be opened by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali today.
Soeharto said the education meeting was expected to encourage all developing countries to follow the steps set out in the New Delhi Declaration on Education for All, which the nine countries signed at their first meeting in the Indian capital in December 1993.
"In this respect, Indonesia will be glad to organize a ministerial meeting of the nine countries in September 1995 in Bali," Soeharto said.
The President said that last year Indonesia introduced the nine-year compulsory education program, for children aged between six and 15 years old. This was an extension of the successful six-year compulsory education program launched in 1984.
The Indonesian government is encouraging the participation of the private sector in education development, he said, stressing that "education is the joint responsibility of government, community and family."
Yesterday's meeting was organized by the United Nations Education, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in cooperation with other UN agencies. Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was the keynote speaker while the other eight leaders were given two minutes each to deliver their addresses.
Meanwhile, Soeharto yesterday canceled a number of meetings he had lined up with other leaders attending the Copenhagen summit because many of them had not yet arrived in the Danish capital.
The meetings with Philippine President Fidel Ramos, Polish President Lech Walesa and Madagascar Prime Minister Francique Ravoy at Hotel D'Angleterre, where Soeharto is staying, had to be dropped. They were originally scheduled to take place yesterday.
By the afternoon, the president's protocols had also canceled meetings with Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and Ukraine President Kuchma which had originally been scheduled for this evening.
Another meeting planned with Algerian President Liamine Zerroual was rescheduled for today.
Soeharto did receive a courtesy call from Ave Sven Bruun, a leader of the Danish cooperative movement, on Thursday night.
Mrs. Bruun, who is of Dutch descent, presented Soeharto with four books on Dutch parliamentary debates about the Netherlands' East Indies, as Indonesia was called when it was a Dutch colony, during the period 1849-1954.
Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono told reporters that the government would keep the books, jointly entitled Parlementaire Redevoeringen over Koloniale Belangen, which were compiled by W.R. Van Hoevell, in the National Archives.
Indonesian Ambassador to Denmark Ani Subijartani Santhoso, who accompanied Mrs Bruuns in the meeting with Soeharto, said the books contained speeches by parliamentarians defending the rights of Indonesians under Dutch rule.
Mrs. Bruun's grandfather worked in Indonesia as a priest but the Dutch government ordered him to return to the Netherlands after learning that he was promoting Indonesians' interests. "The grandfather joined the Dutch parliament after returning from Indonesia and supported Indonesian interests in various parliamentary debates," she said.
First Lady Tien Soeharto, who is accompanying the President on his four-day Danish working visit, attended a dinner hosted by the wife of United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros- Ghali at Copenhagen's Sheraton Hotel yesterday.