The UNESCO Chair “International Education and the Integration of Migrants” in the present status has been functioning since 2008. Since 2017 staff of the Chair has been working at the MPGU. Agreement between UNESCO and MPGU was signed in May 2020.
Topics of the department`s activity
Education, international relations and regional studies, history, culture, sociology, religion studies, ethnology and anthropology.
Dialogue of cultures, linguistic and socio-cultural adaptation and integration of international migrants by means of education.
Human rights and civic education.
Culture of peace, inter-religious dialogue and interethnic consent.
State and ethnocultural identity.
Support of multilingualism by means of education and awareness.
History of the Department
Key areas of activities of the current Chair were formed in the mid-90s under the instructions of the Government of Moscow on the basis of the Moscow Institute of Open Education (MIOO). Among the important tasks solved by the Chair there were: promotion of the ideas of tolerance and the principles of culture of peace, non-violence and interethnic consent set forth in UN and UNESCO documents; development of curricula and methods for intercultural education, adaptation and integration of children from international migrants’ families in the schools of Moscow and other regions of Russia, as well as of foreign countries. A significant number of projects were carried out in cooperation with the UNESCO Moscow Office, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as with partner universities within the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs programme. In 2008, the “UNESCO Chair” status was granted to the Сhair according to the corresponding Agreement.
In 2010, the leaders of the UNESCO Secretariat noted the important contribution of the Chair staff to the preparation and conduct of the World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) held in Moscow.
Among the significant projects implemented by the Chair there are: research, preparation of methodological materials and publications on intercultural education for teachers; development of recommendations for educational organizations in connection with the UN and UNESCO’s adoption of the new agenda “Education-2030”.
The founder and the first Head of the Chair is Mr. Yury A. Goryachev.
Since 2017, the teaching staff of the UNESCO Chair has been transferred to the Moscow Pedagogical State University (due to reorganization and termination of the MIOO). At the same time, the leading directions of the Chair’s activities envisaged by the previously signed Agreement with UNESCO are preserved and being developed at MPGU. The range of tasks to be solved in intercultural education in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Russia has expanded, including: integration of migrant children and youth into the educational process, participation in projects of inter-university partnership and academic mobility, work at adaptation of foreign students. Information on the change of the location of the Chair and its activities within the MPGU was sent to the UNESCO Director General. Twice extended, the Agreement with UNESCO was valid until 2019.
In 2019, an application was submitted to the Headquarters for the official consolidation of the status of the UNESCO Chair in the MPGU. The result of its approval was Agreement on the opening of the UNESCO Chair on “International Education and the Integration of Migrants” at the Moscow Pedagogical State University, at the Faculty of Regional Studies and Ethno-Cultural Education that was signed by the UNESCO Director General Ms. Audrey Azoulay and the MPGU Rector Dr. Alexey V. Lubkov in May 2020.
