The International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (I.C.E.V.I.) is organising its 12th world conference from July 16 to 21, 2006, at Putra World Trade Centre, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The main theme of the conference is 'Achieving equality in education: New challenges and strategies for change'.

At the opening ceremony the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister will officially launch the Education for All Children with Visual Impairment Campaign and Action Programme.

The conference will provide participants with a vast opportunity to stimulate and generate new ideas, as well as promote the exchange of information and experiences with educationist, practitioners, and trainers of visually impaired people from all over the world. The conference will examine achievements, challenges and strategies in bringing all segments into the mainstream so as to achieve equality in education. A series of plenary sessions, parallel sessions, poster presentation, exhibits, tours and social events will comprise the five-day programme.

The programme will include four plenary sessions with four keynote presentations that will feature addresses by an outstanding panel of international experts from international non-government organisations, government, other non-governmental organisations, agencies and academia. There will also be six parallel sessions allowing nearly 200 papers for presentation. Each of the sessions will focus on selected key focus titles that will be addressed by a panel of selected experts in their respective fields from different parts of the world. A workshop session with 15 focus workshop titles will explore a whole range of aspects from policy to service delivery.

The conference venue will have facilities displaying posters and booths for presenting exhibits. In addition, the Host Committee will organise field visits to a wide range of tourist destinations which will include the tallest building in the world, the new administrative capital of Malaysia, among many other interesting places.

For blind and visually impaired persons, there will be limited volunteer helpers as guides. The official language of the conference will be English. However, all plenary sessions and selected parallel sessions will have simultaneous translation in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and English.

For details, visit www.mab.org.