A synergistic effect occurs when important information is coupled with another modern advance - our new capacity to communicate. The scope of basic learning needs and how they should be met varies with individual countries and cultures, and inevitably, changes with the passage of time. The satisfaction of these needs empowers individuals in any society and confers upon them a responsibility to respect and build upon their collective cultural, linguistic and spiritual heritage, to promote the education of others, to further the cause of social justice, to achieve environmental protection, to be tolerant towards social, political and religious systems which differ from their own, ensuring that commonly accepted humanistic values and human rights are upheld, and to work for international peace and solidarity in an interdependent world. Another and no less fundamental aim of educational development is the transmission and enrichment of common cultural and moral values. It is in these values that the individual and society find their identity and worth.
Basic education is more than an end in itself.
It is the foundation for lifelong learning and human development on which countries may build, systematically, further levels and types of education and training. To serve the basic learning needs of all requires more than a recommitment to basic education as it now exists. New possibilities exist today which result from the convergence of the increase in information and the unprecedented capacity to communicate. We must seize them with creativity and a determination for increased effectiveness. The realization of an enormous potential for human progress and empowerment is contingent upon whether people can be enabled to acquire the education and the start needed to tap into the ever-expanding pool of relevant knowledge and the new means for sharing this knowledge.