The IBE emerged relatively unscathed from the Second World War and enjoyed a certain international reputation, thanks in particular to its work on behalf of prisoners of war. These were important assets when it came to dealing with a context of profound change, in which the world’s geopolitical and economic power relations were being reconfigured. A substantial reconfiguration of international organisations accompanied and precipitated its evolution, including the creation in the New York megalopolis of the powerful UN and its multiple bodies, notably UNESCO, putting an end to—and “replacing”—the then discredited LoN and the OIC-IIIC whose cultural missions were entrusted to the UN agency (Image 6.1). Would the small Geneva institution manage to survive, to preserve its autonomy as well as its principles of neutrality and scientificity?

Image 6.1
A photograph of I B E's stand at the entrance to the exhibition of public education. The stand has miniature artifacts. There are boards on the wall with text in a foreign language. The board on the floor has the text Exposition.

IBE’s stand at the entrance to the exhibition of public education (1943). On the left-hand side, article 2 of its rules; on the right-hand side, a short description of its activity for war prisoners: more than 300,000 books sent out (in 1945, more than 600,000). (© IBE)

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Preparing Negotiations to Remain Autonomous

The Second World War fundamentally changed the face of the world: in addition to geopolitical and economic transformations, new intellectual, cultural and educational issues also came to the fore on the international scene. Convinced of the significance of international collaboration in the field of education in order to maintain peace, the Conference of Allied Ministers (CAME) held a meeting in London in 1942.Footnote 1 As is known, it soon turned its attention towards setting up an international organisation devoted to education and culture.Footnote 2 This prospect radically transformed the situation of the IBE, until then the only intergovernmental organisation entirely dedicated to pedagogy and to the improvement of education systems. Piaget was aware of these negotiations, thanks in particular to Marie Butts—who was remained in London during the war—and he defined the possible positioning of the IBE from the outset, in 1943, by loudly proclaiming the guarantees of objectivity and impartiality that were indispensable for such a body:

What if another organisation were to arise elsewhere, more or less similar to ours? Either it would be inspired, as we are, solely by the desire for objectivity and collaboration, which are indispensable to peace, and we would sooner or later be able to co-ordinate our common efforts, or it would be directed towards other aims and, in the end, we would certainly need an impartial and technical body such as the International Bureau of Education in Geneva. (Piaget, Director’s Report, 1943, p. 16)

From London, the IBE Secretary General Butts became an “involuntary but capable ambassador” (Mylonas, 1976, p. 332). She grew close to the influential people working on what she called the “new world education Authority”.Footnote 3 Among the dozens of contacts she made were the American Grayson Kefauver,Footnote 4 author of the first draft of the statutes of what was to become UNESCO; W.E. Richardson, the right-hand man of the British Minister of Education; and Richard A. Butler, who was also in charge of defining the contours of the new body. Both of them inquired sympathetically about the IBE’s position on the initiative. Butts met with Fred ClarkeFootnote 5 and other members of the NEF, who were also concerned about the role their own institution might play in the nascent UNESCO. The same is true of the IIIC, whose representatives, Butts tells us, aspired to take over the UNESCO secretariat.Footnote 6 The English Clarke advocated that an education office be established in Quebec, as “it would be in America without being in the United States, and therefore without risk of upsetting Latin America”, but “[n]ot in Geneva in any case! The Dominions don’t like Geneva, the USSR even less so”.Footnote 7 Butts noted that this opinion was shared by many, especially as the IBE was perceived as being close to the LoN: “Besides, the United Nations do not like Geneva, because of the LoN and because of Swiss opinion.”Footnote 8 Several CAME members were also reluctant to collaborate with the IBE because of the presence of Axis countries among its members.Footnote 9

As soon as peace was signed, the British political scientist Alfred Zimmern,Footnote 10 who was in charge of the preparatory commission for UNESCO’s founding conference, sent a draft statute to the IBE for comment.Footnote 11 The latter suggested including the possibility of organising technical conferences, calling on specialised institutions for UNESCO and using the model of liaison committees such as those that existed between the IBE and the ILO, on the one hand, and the ICIC, on the other hand, to clarify the nature of its relationship with UNESCO. The written negotiations were accompanied by meetings in London, Geneva, Paris and the United States to test the plausibility of such synergies.Footnote 12 After UNESCO’s constitutive conference in 1946, the IBE took stock and reiterated its conditions, first and foremost its independenceFootnote 13:

All the delegations want a collaboration between the IBE and UNESCO in one form or another […] the IBE naturally has great sympathy for the new Organisation but it must have certain reservations as to the method of integration that may be envisaged. […] a special effort [is needed] on the part of the IBE member countries throughout the interim period, so that the UNESCO preparatory committee will find itself in the presence of a body in full vitality and with an independence that will enable it to act on an equal footing.

In order to attest to this full vitality, the IBE’s energies were invested in several areas in the immediate post-war period:

  • Continued involvement of the IBE in the educational reconstruction effort that would be dear to UNESCO;Footnote 14

  • Seeking and obtaining official institutional and financial support from the Swiss Confederation;Footnote 15

  • Continuing the sale of stamps, with a surcharge to raise money and increase the IBE’s visibility;Footnote 16

  • As early as April 1946, organisation of the XIth ICPE to which representatives of the ministries of education of all countries of the world were invited;Footnote 17

  • Continuing other activities undertaken earlier, documentations, exhibitions, publication of Bulletins and Yearbooks, international surveys and ICPEs (Image 6.2).

Image 6.2
A photograph of delegates seated in a hall during a constitutive session of UNESCO in London.

Constitutive session of UNESCO in London, 1946. At the very back, one can read the acronym “IBE” besides the USA and the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). Jean Piaget and a Swiss colleague took part in this session, almost exclusively male. (© IBE)

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Granting the IBE “All the Honours as UNESCO’s ‘Father’ and Assigning it the Role of ‘Little Brother’”

The IBE was therefore ready for negotiations about its own fate, which became more intense during 1946.Footnote 18 There were two opposing views. One, favoured by the UNESCO representatives, envisaged a rapid absorption, with the IBE becoming a research institute integrated into UNESCO. The other, defended in the IBE memorandum, proposed that the IBE should become an independent technical institution, collaborating with UNESCO on specific topics:

While it is agreed that UNESCO’s field of action should be as broad as possible, it is also agreed that UNESCO should share its tasks with other public international institutions – institutions that would thus become specialised to the second degreeFootnote 19 – which would thus complement UNESCO’s direct action.Footnote 20

During the negotiations, the IBE respondents accepted no compromise and sharpened their weapons: “If things do not improve by then, we will be able to fight in November”, said Piaget.Footnote 21 After bitter discussions, which came up against UNESCO’s injunctions to its own delegates and the determination of the IBE, a transitional solution was found: to entrust the joint IBE/UNESCO commission, provided for in the talks, with the task of specifying the terms of the link. This was in fact the path recommended by the IBE and which was implemented in 1947. In a letter dated 3 January 1946, Rosselló wrote to Bovet:

I am sending you herewith the draft provisional agreement which we have obtained after a very fierce struggle with the representatives of UNESCO. […] We are attempting a very difficult operation, that of seeing the IBE, to whom all the honours of the “father” of UNESCO are to be granted, now become its “little brother”.Footnote 22

The path proposed by the IBE was stabilised in the 1952 agreement. “The IBE is, along with the United Nations, the only intergovernmental organisation with which UNESCO has a formal agreement”, explained UNESCO’s Deputy Director Jean ThomasFootnote 23 at the first ICPE jointly convened by the two organisations in 1947 (p. 20).

“A trial marriage and a marriage of convenience” stated Piaget, the pragmatic diplomat (ICPE, 1948, p. 21); a union that was also a love match, according to the UNESCO Deputy Director General, Clarence Edward Beeby. A long engagement, one might retort, since the marriage would be validated five years after it had been tried out and renewed from year to year, in order for both parties to have time to appreciate its advantages; and moreover, the union then gained a clause allowing its non-renewal on the simple and free renunciation by one of the parties. It was as a technical agency working closely with UNESCO that the IBE found its place, which it occupied until the end of the 1960s. Considered as the “precursor of UNESCO”Footnote 24 in the field of education, it thus became part of the complex UN system. UNESCO carried out direct actions in education in several countries, guided by the concept of “fundamental education”.Footnote 25 It also had specialised second-level institutions covering various fields (cinema, libraries, adult education, etc.), including the IBE for its activities in favour of public education with a view to comparative education.Footnote 26

The IBE maintained its mechanisms: Yearbook, Bulletin, international surveys, ICPE leading to recommendations, as well as its permanent exhibition and collection of works, that is, school textbooks, books on psychology and pedagogy, legal and administrative texts concerning education in the world. Its work remained exclusively technical, as its respondents tirelessly pointed out; the principle of universality governed the collaboration with states, preserving the opportunity to have as partners countries initially ineligible for the UN and UNESCO.Footnote 27

This collaboration gave the Bureau a new scope in terms of legitimacy, representativeness of the ICPEs and inclusion in wider networks of relations. The IBE retained its Geneva headquarters, managed its budget with relative autonomy, had an independent management, recruited its own staff—raised to the status of international civil servants once all was stabilised—and maintained its openness to any country wishing to join the Bureau.

However, this autonomy was relative. The IBE-UNESCO Footnote 28 agreement made provision for a “joint commission” composed of three representatives of UNESCO, on the one hand, and the IBE, on the other hand. It determined the tasks common to both bodies, and divided the others, to avoid any duplication. More specifically, it drew up the list of countries and organisations to be invited to the ICPEs, with the final decision resting with the institutions that made up the commission, that is, the governing bodies of the IBE and UNESCO respectively; it drew up the agenda of the ICPEs, selecting from among the investigations carried out by the IBE those that would be discussed; it listed the tasks that the IBE had to carry out on behalf of UNESCO, particularly in the field of documentation; it managed the distribution of financial charges and controlled the budgets.

The collaboration allowed the IBE to stabilise and increase the number of countries participating in its surveys and conferences, also carried out under the auspices of UNESCO. It should be noted that the choice of themes for the surveys to be carried out was essentially defined by the IBE’s bodies, that is, the IBE’s Executive Committee and Council, as well as the Secretariat, including its management, which was still entrusted to Piaget and Rosselló.

The IBE seemed to be developing harmoniously, following an apparently perfectly functioning system. But what happened in the mid-1950s, when world geopolitics was once again being reconfigured and the number of autonomous countries likely to join the IBE was increasing?