Contradictions Linked to the Universalist Aim

The aspiration to have all the countries of the world join, regardless of their political and ideological orientations, contained the seeds of contradictions. In the troubled 1930s, the IBE and liberal and democratic tendencies did not predominate among the affiliated countries, and the IBE Secretariat assiduously courted republican regimes. The contradictions became more acute as nationalist tensions rose and also with the Cold War and its political and economic conflicts. An insert analysing the discussion of the financing of education illustrates these contradictions.