<<December 22, 2000>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved
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Sir John Daniel <j.s.daniel@open.ac.uk>
Dr. Paul Lefrere <p.lefrere@open.ac.uk>
P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D, Professor <tapio.varis@uta.fi>
Dear Sir Daniel:
================
(1) I would like to express my sincere congratulations to
your new position
as the Assistant Director-General for Education of the UNESCO.
You are well deserved for this position with outstanding
achievements in
Canada and at the Open University/U.K. in the past three
decades.
(2) Our past quarter century was devoted to the realization
of global
distance learning with strong support of Dr. Federico Mayor,
former
Director-General, Dr. Colin N. Power, former Assistant Director-General
for Education, and many UNESCO officers in Paris and various
countries --
some of them are our listserve members as being kept updated with our daily progress.
Thanks to their encouragement, we are now establishing
a Global
University System (GUS) with Dr. Tapio Varis of the University
of
Tampere in Finland (former Rector of the UN University of
Peace in Costa
Rica) as the Acting President, Dr. Marco Antonio Dias, former
Director
of Higher Education of UNESCO/Paris, as the Vice President
of
Administration, and Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, former Director-General
of the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU), as a Trustee
member. The
infrastructure of the GUS will be Global Broadband Internet
(GBI) which
will be financed by the Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF)
-- for more
information please click Current Reference Websites"
at the tope of the
home page of our web site at <http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/>.
(3) Those three GUS, GBI and GSTF inter-woven projects were
initiated at our
highly successful International Workshop and Conference on
Emerging
Global Electronic Distance Learning (EGEDL)" which was
held from August
9 to 13, 1999 at the University of Tampere, Finland, with
support of the
InfoDev of the World Bank, the US National Science Foundation,
Finnish
Ministry of Education and many others.
At that time, Dr. Tapio Varis approached you and you kindly
suggested
Dr. Paul Lefrere to attend it. We were very grateful to
his attendance,
since he is now one of strong supporters of our GUS project
--
incidentally, Paul, Tapio and me will be at the Information
Day
Conference of European Commission in Luxembourg from January
8 to 10,
2001. This is to assist our colleagues in developing countries
to close
their digital divide" and realize Education and Healthcare
for All" at
anywhere and anytime.
(4) I am sure that your vast experience in global scale, especially on e-learning,
will be a substantial asset to the UNESCO. We look forward
to
your making great stride of the UNESCO to new areas of endeavor
in the coming years.
(5) Have a very pleasant holiday season and happy, prosperous New Year!!
Very sincerely yours,
Tak Utsumi
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I
News Release
Media Relations Office
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44-1-908 274066
Tel: +44-1-908 653343 / 653256 / 653248
Fax: +44-1-908 652247
Media-Office@open.ac.uk
http://www.open.ac.uk/
Attention: News Editors, Education writers
PR 4416
18 December, 2000
OPEN UNIVERSITY VICE-CHANCELLOR APPOINTED TO UNESCO
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, has announced
the
appointment of OU Vice-Chancellor Sir John Daniel to the post
of Assistant
Director-General for Education. Sir John will move to Paris to
take up his new
post in Spring 2001.
Commenting on his appointment Sir John said:
"I am delighted and honoured that Mr Matsuura has asked me
to join his new
team and to lead UNESCO's work in its core function of education.
"Now that the UN, the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank have
agreed key goals
for international development the challenges for UNESCO are clear.
They
include enrolling all children in primary school by 2015 and eliminating
gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005.
"The programme priorities set by UNESCO's Executive Board
centre on the key
themes which have motivated me throughout my career, namely the
need to bring
education to all and the role of new methods and technologies
in achieving that goal."
Sir John came to the Open University as Vice-Chancellor in 1990
after a
21-year career in Canada during which he helped to launch distance
learning
universities in Quebec and Alberta and was later President of
Laurentian
University, Ontario, from 1984-90. His book Mega-Universities
and Knowledge
Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education established
his reputation
as a leading thinker about the educational applications of contemporary
information and communications media.
During his ten years as Vice-Chancellor, student numbers at the
OU have almost
doubled and with 200,000 students online the university has become
a world
leader in e-learning.
"Leading the OU for a decade has been an immense privilege,"
said Sir John.
"It was the 20th century's major innovation in higher education
and will have
an even greater impact in the 21st century. It will be a wrench
to leave this
remarkable university."
Editor's notes
1. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural
Organisation, is a specialised agency of the United Nations
Organisation. It is headquartered in Paris. http://www.unesco.org
2. The current Director-General, Koichiro Matsuura, took
office as
Director-General of UNESCO in 1999 after a distinguished
career in the
Japanese Foreign Service. He has embarked on an important
programme of
reform aimed at sharpening UNESCO's focus on its core mandate
and
improving its effectiveness.
3. Mr Matsuura has created a structure with six Assistant
Directors-General
responsible for the areas of Education, Science, Social Science,
Culture, Communications and Information, and Administration.
http://www.unesco.org/general/eng/about/chart/index.shtml
4. The OU is Britain's largest university with more than
200,000 people
studying its courses throughout the UK, Europe and the rest
of the
world. It is the only UK university to teach students through
supported
open learning and it has opened the door to higher education
for more
than two million people.
Media contacts:
Gary Spink, OU Media Relations: 01908 653343
Eulina Clairmont, OU Media Relations: 01908 653248
Fiona Leslie, OU Media Relations: 01908 653256
****************************************
List of Distribution
Sir John Daniel
Vice Chancellor
Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
UK
j.s.daniel@open.ac.uk
Dr. Paul Lefrere
Senior Lecturer
Institute of Educational Technology
Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44-1-908 65 33 88
Fax: +44-1-908 67 28 02
p.lefrere@open.ac.uk
http://www-iet.open.ac.uk/
P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D, Professor
Acting President, Global University System
Chairman, GLOSAS/Finland
Professor and Chair
Media Culture and Communication Education
Hypermedia laboratory
University of Tampere
P.O.Box 607
FIN-33101 Tampere
FINLAND
Tel: +358-3-215 6110
Tel: +358-3-614-5247--office in Hameenlinna
Tel: +358-3-215 6243--mass media lab in Tampere
GSM: +358-50-567-9833
Fax: +358-3-215 7503
tapio.varis@uta.fi
http://www.uta.fi/~titava
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA
*
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)
*
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education
*
* Founder of CAADE
*
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education)
*
* President Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination
of *
* Global University System (GUS)
*
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A.
*
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer
email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
*
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/
*
**********************************************************************