Saturday, March 11, 2006

Philip Hall Coombs; Education Expert and Advocate

Read the obituary in the Washington Post, March 10, 2006.

Read the obituary in the New York Times, March 7, 2006.

Philip Hall Coombs, 90, the first assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, died Februar 15, 2006 in Chester, Conn.

Mr. Coombs worked for UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning in Paris. In 1970, he became vice chairman and then chairman of the International Council of Economic Development, focusing on improving education in developing countries.

His books include "The Fourth Dimension of Foreign Policy" (1964); "Education and Foreign Aid" (1965); "Attacking Rural Poverty: How Nonformal Education Can Help" (1974); and "The World Crisis in Education: The View From the Eighties" (1985).

"We praise education's virtues and count on it to help the new generation solve great problems which the older generation has failed to solve," Secretary Coombs told an international meeting in Washington in 1961. "But when it comes to spending more money for education, our deeds often fail to match our words."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Andre Varchaver writes:

Phil Coombs is a great American who left an important "trace" at UNESCO: the International Institute of Educational Planning (IIEP) of whose Board of Trustees, by the way, Ray Wanner is President.