Unity and Diversity in Education towards an Integrating Europe
Unity and Diversity in Education towards an Integrating Europe

Summary/Abstract: Had I been asked to deal with unity and diversity in education towards an integrating Europe only ten years ago my conceptual approach must have been entirely different from the following one. It is true that at that time already the 'European' orientation would not have been as hesitant and cautious as it would have been ten years ago. Yet, I should have had to lay my emphasis more on "possibilities" and "hopes". Seven years ago, however, the situation had totally changed. That was the year after the breakdown of the Berlin wall and the "velvet revolutions" which took place in most countries of Central Europe, to use Vaclav Havel's symbolic characterisation. Those years were full of enthusiasm after the collapse of the communist régime and "expectations" directed to a new and better future. Now, five years later, the scene has changed again. On the one hand the great upheaval of the late eighties and beginning nineties has turned out to be irreversible, and there are many occurrences and trends signalling that the former communist countries seem to be on the way for the better. On the other hand one cannot overlook that "euphoria" is over, and that the re-established or newly established democracies find it much harder to go ahead. In some of the Central and Eastern European countries members of the previous régimes have returned to power which, however, should not be taken as a way back to the past. Therefore the appraisal has remained valid that the radical changes in Eastern Europe at the end of the eighties and the fade-down of the West-East conflict have opened new contours for a "wider" Europe. At the same time when the radical changes in Eastern Europe happened, the developments in the Western part of our continent were exciting too, though not so spectacular and turbulent as in the Eastern part. At the end of the eighties the European Community started to take definite steps towards integration, and that development ended up in the enactment of the treaty of Maastricht at the end of 1992 which has opened new perspectives for the old as well as for the new member countries. Summing up these introductory remarks, "Europe" as a whole has entered a new period in her history, and the political, socioeconomic and cultural changes have had essential implications on education in its formal and non-formal domains. When using the term "Europe" we should be clear in rising no claim to any "hegemonial", let alone "imperialistic" policy against the "rest of the world". The notion is only used as a working concept to underline the "return" of the countries which had been welded into the "Eastern Bloc", to the free community of European nations. In this view the notion expresses the third dimension of Europe against the "EU-Europe" (first dimension) and the "Council of Europe Region" (second dimension), as it existed until 1990. In the meantime the second dimension has expanded to the countries of Central and, partially, of South-East and Eastern Europe having become full members of the Council of Europe; other countries are likely to follow in the near future: Georgia, Azerbaidzhan and Armenia. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the peaceful revolutions and upheavals in East Central Europe and, though to a lesser degree, the recent changes in South-East Europe have made the previous "West-East demarcation" questionable. I will resume this point later when discussing the impacts on these changes on education. In any case, the notions of "West" and "East" have lost their distinctive connotations which had been legitimated by the demarcations determined by the political and military power structure as one of the most significant and one of the most inhuman outcomes of World War II. The entry of Central European countries, to begin with Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, is likely to increasingly accelerate this process.

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