1925

The IBE is created as a private Swiss association

During its first years, the IBE organized courses, study visits, exhibitions, and conferences, and gathered and disseminated information on all matters related to education.

1929

Signature of the New Statutes

Jean Piaget, the eminent Swiss psychologist, is appointed director, with Pedro Rossello, a Spanish educationist, as his deputy. Together, they led the IBE for almost forty years.

1932

First session of the ICPE

The IBE starts convening sessions of the International Conference on Public Education (ICPE) through the intermediary of the Swiss Federal Council (an arrangement that continued until 1946), inviting ministries of education to present reports on recent educational developments in their countries.

1934 · 1939

Third to Eighth ICPEs

Authoritarian and democratic regimes discussing together.

1946

Nineth ICPE

Last International Conference on Public Education (ICPE) organizedby IBE alone.

1947

Tenth ICPE

First International Conference on Public Education (ICPE) organized by IBE and UNESCO together.

1954

Sixteenth ICPE

After Stalin’s death, the Communist States were present again; Cold War entered IBE.

1960

Participation of ancient colonized countries

More and more ancient colonized countries participated in IBE’s activities.

1963 · 1964

Exclusion of the colonial Portugal

Majority of African, Arab and Communist countries excluded the colonial Portugal from the International Conference on Public Education (ICPE).

1967

Resignation of Jean Piaget

Letter of resignation of Jean Piaget as Director of the IBE.

1969

Integration of the IBE to UNESCO

The IBE becomes an integral part of UNESCO, as an international center of comparative education, with a mandate of pursuing research particularly in the area of comparative education and maintaining educational documentation and information services.

1930

Note on the IBE and the League of Nations

Piaget and the secretariat defended the neutral, Swiss-situated IBE against the French IICI’s tendency to intervene in international educational matters.

«After having remained aloof from educational questions for several years because it considered them to be the most sacred area of national sovereignty, the League of Nations has suddenly changed its tactics and [...] is trying, under the guise of "moral disarmament", to bind States by conventions on education. This project [...] will make the IICI [Institute of Intellectual Cooperation] in Paris play a leading role in this attempt to regulate education internationally. All those who wish to see educational questions treated from a strictly objective point of view cannot but have reservations about the influence of a given country on a delicate and important question». (Note on the IBE and the League of Nations, ~ 1930)

1938

Letters

Courting all the governments of the world, be they fascist (Italy) or democratic (USA): Desire to balance by all means.

1931

The ascension from the individual to the universal

The ideal of the ICPEs: based on the conception of moral and solidarity in child development.

Piaget, J. (1931a). L’esprit de solidarité chez l’enfant et la collaboration internationale. Recueil pédagogique, 2, p. 26

1955

Piaget: Diplomat during the Cold War

Piaget regularly intervened in the bodies of the BIE so that all the countries of the world were invited to participate in the IICE, independently of their political regime: it is the concrete application of the principle of neutrality.

Mr. PIAGET wished to recall another problem […] namely that of the participation of the People's Republic of China. […] The BlE is interested in the development of education in all countries, regardless of their political system. // M. PIAGET points out that already before 1947, when the BlE was solely responsible for for the organization of the International Conferences on Public Education, it sent invitations to all States, whether or not they were members of the IBE. // Mr. ELVIN pointed out that China was on the list of States to be invited to the Conference; it remained to be specified which China was concerned. As far as Unesco […it] decided in favour of the Republic of China.

1963 · 1964

Piaget and the rise of newly independent countries, the ancient colonies

Piaget regularly condemned colonialism. But, faithful to the principle of neutrality and respect for the legal rules in force, he opposed the exclusion of Portugal from the IBE proposed by the African states and supported in particular by the communist countries. In 1963, the ICPE continued; in 1964, he left the ICPE after the vote of exclusion.

Piaget intervened to remind the delegates that he considered as not valid, in the name of the customs in use since the foundation of the IBE, the tabling of this draft resolution [of expulsion]. (Tribune de Genève, 4/5 July 1963)
«But dear Sirs, the fact that we are weak politically […] is the strength of our objective and active neutrality» (Piaget, statement for the XXIIth ICPE 1964, after exclusion of Portugal)

Piaget

Diplomat of Educational Internationalism

  • 1930
    The IBE Secretariat in 1930, with Jean Piaget (front row, center), Director; Pedro Rosselló (front row, center right), Deputy Director; and Marie Butts (front row, center left), Secretary-General. Piaget and Rosselló presided over the IBE during the 40 years of its existence as an independent intergovernmental organization on education.

  • 1930
    Third summer course for teachers, principals and inspectors. The training took place from 28 July to 2 August 1930, at the IBE’s headquarters located at the rue des Maraîchers in Geneva. 89 participants came from 18 countries.

  • 1934
    Participants in the Third International Conference on Public Education (ICPE) posing in front of the bust of Jean-Gabriel Eynard, a Genevan protector of the arts, July 1934. The American delegate, Fannie Fern Andrews (center front, wearing a hat), was a wellknown lobbyist for the inclusion of peace education in curricula.

  • 1935
    Delegates’ lunch break at the fourth ICPE, July 1935. In many countries, the main challenge of the time was how to increase access, framed as “the need to increase the numbers of classes and teachers”. At the end of the conference, recommendations were made on the training of primary and secondary teachers.

  • 1936
    Participants in the fifth ICPE posing in front of the Palais Wilson in July 1936. In the Director’s Report of that year, Jean Piaget observed that “the IBE had set itself a new task (...) to coordinate the Ministries of Education themselves and their efforts for the advancement of education”.

  • 1946
    Convened from 4 to 9 March 1946 in the aftermath of World War II, the ninth ICPE addressed equality of opportunity for secondary education, as well as hygiene (health) education in primary and secondary schools: a precursor of modern-day health and well-being education. The list of IBE Member States was still growing; at that point it included Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, the United States, Finland, France, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Lebanon, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, South Africa, South Africa, and Yugoslavia.

  • 1950
    Inauguration of the exhibition on American textbooks at the Permanent Exhibition on Public Education. Speech by Kuo Yu-Shou (center), UNESCO’s first Head of Education Section, with Jean Piaget (right), Director of the IBE, and Albert Picot (left), Head of the Education Department of the Canton of Geneva, 1950.

  • 1950
    Jean Piaget (right) and Pedro Rosselló (center) at the 15th ICPE in 1952. Appointed Deputy Director of the IBE in 1928, Rosselló was the backbone of the organization and its main chronicler. During his closing speech at the conference, he observed that the conference had beaten several records: 102 delegates from 51 countries, including 33 women.

  • 1959
    Jean Piaget (far left), Director of the IBE, and Pedro Rosselló (standing behind Piaget), Deputy Director, at the 22nd ICPE, July 1959. At the conference, Piaget stressed the importance of encouraging students to develop an experimental outlook right from primary school, and especially at secondary school level.

  • 1962
    Jean Piaget (center), Director of the IBE, at the 25th International ICPE in 1962. For 15 years, the conference had been convened jointly by the IBE and UNESCO, while a Joint Commission was responsible for effective co-operation between the two institutions.

  • 1963
    Reception for Congolese scholarship holders at the Palais Wilson, summer 1963. Funded by UNESCO, this program enabled numerous educators from developing countries to study abroad. The IBE participated in this program by coordinating studies in pedagogy at the University of Geneva and at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, as well as study trips in Switzerland.