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CALL TO OUR GUIDING INSTITUTIONS
DECEMBER
9
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THE CALL TO EDUCATION
Particular attention must be paid to learning about values, since an understanding of how values are adopted, adapted, and shared is crucial to a peaceful and harmonious life. As no institution can do this work alone, it is important that families, schools, neighborhoods, local religious and spiritual communities, and each of the guiding institutions collaborate in this effort. Public education must never be used to further the exclusive aims of interest groups, ideologies, political parties, or religions.
Education is one of the most precious gifts a society can give for the enrichment of the society itself. We are obliged to make wise and equitable investments to develop excellent teachers and to build a basic infrastructure capable of carrying out essential educational tasks.
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We call on the institution of education to develop practical ways to engage creatively with other guiding institutions in pursuit of a just, peaceful, and sustainable world.
In this spirit, we invite all individuals, communities, groups, and organizations engaged with the institution of education to reassess their roles for the next century.
Each is invited
to renew their commitment to universal education and to develop and extend common statements of ethical standards and practices that can be accepted, implemented, and monitored around the world;
to work together with other guiding institutions to provide and strengthen the economic and material base for the development of educational systems worldwide;
to address the needs of the world's poorest and least educated, with full-fledged universal literacy as a primary goal;
to explore the most substantial and expedient ways to expand and enrich the education of girls and women worldwide;
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1999 PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS
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