In response to a question, "Is Global Educated Needed," Robert Muller, Assistant Secretary-General, of the United Nations responded with a proposal which became known as the "world core curriculum." Muller's curriculum is based on his 33 years experience in the United Nations, and the knowledge of the state of the planet's educational system. He says this:
"Let me tell you how I would educate the children of this planet in the light of my 33 years of experience at the United Nations and offer you a world core curriculum which should underlie all grades, levels and forms of education including adult education.Alas, many newly-born will never reach school age. One out of ten will die before the age of 1 and another four percent will die before the age of 5. This we must try to prevent by all means. We must also try to prevent that children reach school age with handicaps. It is estimated that ten percent of all the world's children reach school age with a handicap of a physical, sensory or mental nature. In the developing countries, an unforgivable major cause is still malnutrition.
Thirdly, an ideal world curriculum presupposes that there are schools in all parts of the world. Alas, this is not the case. There are still 814 million illiterates on this planet. Humanity has done wonders in educating its people: we have reduced the percentage of illiterates of the world's adult population from 32.4 percent to 28.9 percent between 1970 and 1980, a period of phenomenal population growth. But between now and the year 2000, 1.6 billioin more people will be added to this planet and we are likely to reach a total of 6.1 billion people in that year. Ninety percent of the increase will be in the developing countries where the problem of education is more severe. As a result, the total number of illiterates could climb to 950 million by the Bimillennium.
Education for all (italics, mine) remains, therefore, a first priority on this planet. This is why UNESCO has rightly adopted a World Literacy Plan 2000. With all these miseries and limitations still with us, it remains important, nevertheless, to lift our sights and to begin thinking of a world core curriculum.
As I do it in the United Nations, where all human knowledge, concerns, efforts, and aspirations converge, I would organize such a curriculum, i.e., the fundamental life-long objectives of education, around the following categories:
I. Our Planetary Home and Place in the Universe II Our Human Family
III. Our Place in Time
IV. The Miracle of Individual Human Life"
A world core curriculum, as Muller envisions it would enable all students to understand the planet upon which they were born, and to know their relationship to human groups all over the planet. Ethnic and cultural understanding is an important aspect of Muller's core curriculum. He also suggests that students need to understand their place in time---where did humanity come from, and where is it going. Finally, the Muller proposal suggests that "individual human life is the highest form of universal consciousness on the planet," and that the curriculum should be based on a holistic integration of physical well being, mental development, moral development and spiritual development.
The Muller world core curriculum is distinctly interdisciplinary and multicultural. The global perspective for education as envisioned by Muller, is organized around four harmonies as shown in Figure 11.5b. Although traditional topics are part of the plan (students study our relationship to the sun, the atomosphere, biosphere, mountains, minerals, nutrition, etc.), they are viewed in relationship to a larger consciousness---the global perspective.