Catalogue description Board of Education and Ministry of Education: Conference of Allied Ministers of Education: Correspondence and Papers

The Conference of Allied Ministers of Education was formed after discussions held at a reception given by the British Council at Claridges on 11th February, 1942. The first meeting held on 16th November, 1942 was attended by representatives of the Board of Education, the Scottish Education Department, the Foreign Office, the British Council, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Yugoslavia with Mr. R. A. Butler, the President of the Board of Education as Chairman. The object of such a conference was to enable "collaboration on educational questions affecting the allied countries of Europe and the United Kingdom both during and after the war".

At the second meeting on 19th January, 1943 the Conference established a Books and Periodicals Commission, consisting of a representative of each Allied Government, to consider the supply of books and periodicals to the occupied countries in the post-war period. This commission formed a further Sub-Committee, the History Commission, to deal with the production of history text-books and plans for a brief history of the war.

The conference continued with the same members and additional representatives from the Commonwealth and with observers from the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. The members continued also to elect certain sub-Committees. At the fifth meeting on 27th July, 1943 the Commission on Scientific and Laboratory Equipment, later amended to the Science Commission, came into being. Its object was to enquire into the needs of the occupied countries in scientific and laboratory equipment. At the same meeting the Films and Visual Aids Commission was formed to consider the educational uses of films and other visual aids in occupied countries after the war. This commission established a Schools Broadcasting Sub-Committee at a later meeting, and its title was subsequently changed to Audio-Visual Aids Commission.

On 11th August, 1943 a select committee was appointed to deal with the organisation of the conference and this in turn elected an executive bureau to act as an advisory committee between the conference and the various commissions to control expenses and to report on conditions in other countries. The bureau consisted of representatives from Britain, the Allied governments and the dominions and met at fortnightly intervals.

The conference continued as before appointing, inter alia, the Commission for the Protection and Restitution of Cultural Material with Professor Vaucher the French Representative as Chairman, the Basic Scholastic Equipment Commission and a Finance and Establishments Committee to control the expenditure of the conference and deal with the appointment of staff. After April, 1944, however, plans for the formation of a larger organisation became of primary importance. The organisation to be known as "the Educational and Cultural Organisation of the United Nations", was to consist of members of the United Nations and any other nation recommended by the executive board on a two-thirds majority.

• The purposes of the organisation were:
• to develop and maintain mutual understanding and appreciation of the life and culture, the arts, the humanities and the sciences of the peoples of the world, as a basis for effective international organisation and world peace; and
• to co-operate in extending and in making available to all peoples for the service of common human needs the world's full body of knowledge and culture, and in assuring its contribution to the economic stability, political security, and general well-being of the peoples of the world.

The title of the Organisation was later amended to "the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organisation" (U.N.E.C.O.) and after much discussion it was decided, in February, 1945, that the word "Science" should appear in the title, thus completing the transition to "the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation" (U.N.E.S.C.O.).