Education professor wins UNESCO prize
September 20, 2000 - The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has awarded University of Alberta education professor Dr. Swee-Hin Toh its Prize for Peace Education for the year 2000. The prize was announced last Friday in Paris, France.
The winner is selected annually by an international jury and is awarded to recognize contributions over an extended period of time to education for peace-related fields such as human rights and international understanding. Previous winners include Nobel laureates Mother Teresa and Rigoberta Menchu Tum.
"I knew I had been nominated [by the Philippines]," Toh said, "but it was a surprise to find out I'd won. We don't do the work we do to win awards."
He also noted, "This is not just a personal award. There are many peace educators and groups around the world who share this with me--co-operation is one of the key principles of our work."
U of A Associate Dean of Education (Research) Dr. Carolyn Yewchuk called Toh's award "a remarkable accomplishment" and added, "I can't find the words to describe this...It's a culmination of two decades of his work, and it's extraordinary for an academic to win this award. It's perhaps one of the highest honours someone at the U of A has ever received....We're absolutely thrilled and proud he's in our faculty and is one of our colleagues."
Born in Malaysia but an Australian citizen, Toh received his doctorate from the U of A in 1980. He was the director of the Centre for International Education and Development while it was housed at the U of A from 1994 to 1999. According to the UNESCO press release, Toh "has helped to pioneer and promote peace education in many countries--such as Uganda, South Africa, Jamaica, Japan and the USA--but above all in the Philippines, a site of long-standing armed, social and cultural conflicts."
Toh's latest work was establishing the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding in South Korea. "It was launched a month ago and now we can move ahead with educating people in the region about peace and what it means to achieve peace."
Toh described peace as a complex process that "entails much more than the absence of war. It is a multidimensional idea that includes social, economical, environmental, cultural and even personal factors."
His current project is a book of stories about Philippine peace educators. "It's about what they've learned, and I hope it will help others in their efforts to spread peace."
Related links - internal
- Dr. Toh's U of A Web site: http://www.ualberta.ca/~cied/eps/page43.html
- The Centre for International Education and Development Web site: http://www.ualberta.ca/%7ecied/
- The Faculty of Education Web site: http://www.education.ualberta.ca/
- The UNESCO Web site: http://www.unesco.org/
