Education minister engages with senior Unesco officials to foster new areas of cooperation and technical support   |08 November 2023

The Seychelles and Unesco delegations in a souvenir photograph

The Minister for Education, Dr Justin Valentin, who is leading a Seychelles delegation at the 42nd Unesco General Conference in Paris, met with a delegation from Unesco on Monday as a precursor to the conference.

The aim of the meeting, held at the Unesco headquarters, was to discuss opportunities for cooperation and technical support.

The Unesco delegation was led by Borhene Chakroun, the director of the division for policies and lifelong learning; Carlos Vargas-Tamez, chief of the section for teacher development and head of the secretariat of the international task force on teachers for education 2030; Gwang-Chol Chang, chief of section for education policy, and Alexandros Makarigakis, the acting regional director of the Unesco Nairobi office.

Accompanying the minister at the meeting was Shirley Choppy, the chief executive of the Institute of Early Childhood Development (IECD), the Category 2 Centre for Early Childhood Care and Education, under the auspices of Unesco; Vicky Michel, secretary general of the Seychelles National Commission for Unesco; and  Hannah Pool, director of international cooperation and exchange from IECD.

The discussions covered various critical areas of mutual interest. These included Seychelles' role in advancing the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) commitments of the Tashkent Declaration and Commitments to Action, teacher management policy tailored to small island nations, modernised and cost-effective data management tools for enhanced accessibility, legislation for home schooling, the global convention on higher education, the work plan and mobilisation strategy for the newly established Category 2 Centre, as well as the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme.

This meeting marked an essential step in further strengthening the partnership between Seychelles and Unesco, with a focus on collaborative initiatives that promote quality early childhood education, innovation, and sustainable development. 

Unesco also pledged their support for IECD as the first Category 2 Centre in ECCE aiding in supporting exchange and exploratory visits to other centres, Category 1 centres and relevant organisations affiliated with Unesco for further technical assistance in the areas of knowledge creation, data management among others.

Contributed