Strategic Aims Aim 1

Strategic Aims Aim 1 : Quality education for all Achievement of the fundamental right to quality education for all, without discrimination, through establishment, protection and promotion of publicly funded and regulated systems of education to provide equality of educational opportunity. 1.1 Defending Quality Education in the face of the global crisis As the impact of the crisis continued to be felt by EI members in many countries, EI pursued advocacy with the major international agencies in order to press home its key messages that: • Education is an investment in the future and sustainable recovery; • There must be a boost in vocational education and training to help avoid the risk of a ’lost generation’ of unemployed youth; • Quality public education is a universal right; • The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on Education for All (EFA) underpins all of the other MDGs; governments must maintain their commitments to close the funding gap to achieve EFA by 2015; and • Qualified teachers are the key to quality in education. EI worked to ensure that these messages were conveyed coherently in its advocacy with the relevant inter-governmental agencies, in its co-operation with coalition partners via the Global Unions and the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), as well as through action at the World Economic Forum (WEF). In particular, EI pressed these key messages directly with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while continuing to engage with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); World Bank; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO); International Labour Organisation (ILO); World Trade Organisation (WTO); World Health Organisation (WHO); United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and other UN agencies and programmes. Special attention was given to the G20, which has, in many ways, taken the place of the G8 summit as the principal forum for the leaders of major and emerging economies which together represent a total of 80 percent of global GDP. While EI was successful in getting our key messages on record at the 2009 G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, the G20 summits have so far failed to give the same attention to education, except in the area of vocational education and training. This disparity between the G8 and G20 summit statements is symptomatic of major challenges which lie ahead. Two important coalitions – the Global Unions and the GCE – continued to provide major vehicles for EI advocacy. EI worked closely with other Global Unions and the ILO to implement the mandate of the G20 Summit held in Pittsburgh in November 2009, to develop a global training strategy. EI assumed a leadership role together with the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) in convening an inter-sectoral global dialogue forum on ‘Upskilling out of the Downturn: Strategies for Sectoral Training and Employment Security’, at the ILO offices in Geneva on 29-30 March. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD, and most Global Union Federations also participated. The conclusions were conveyed to G20 Labour and Employment Ministers who met in Washington three weeks later, on 19-20 April and presented recommendations to the G20 leaders through US President Barack Obama (see also G8 and G20 below). An important step forward in our advocacy was taken at the annual WEF meeting in Davos when the EI General Secretary was a panellist at a high level meeting about the critical importance of qualified teachers, pointing out that the reality in many countries fell far short of minimal requirements for quality education. The EI position was supported by the Director General of UNESCO, the President of Panama, and several CEOs of major corporations, as well as presidents of leading universities. A preliminary paper was presented at the same session by the WEF’s Global Agenda Council for Education, on which EI is represented. This paper was further developed with key sections on funding of EFA and the need for qualified teachers. It was presented to a WEF Summit in Doha in May. There were major internal debates in the council on the role of teachers in 21st century education, which required significant engagement by EI, and the result was a document reported by WEF to be among the most influential presented to the Doha Summit. Co-operation with the ITUC and TUAC was an integral part of EI’s efforts at the WEF. EI also continued to participate actively in the TUAC Working Group on Economic Policy. A meeting of this working group was held in Washington on 10-12 March and finalised the Global Unions’ statement to the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers meeting, mentioned above, and worked on the positions to be taken both for the OECD Ministerial Council and for the next G20 Summit. On this occasion, the Global Unions’ Washington office arranged meetings at the World Bank and the IMF. EI took the opportunity to confront IMF representatives about the contradiction between statements from IMF leadership about investment in education, and the reality faced by many EI members, in some cases entailing school closures and teacher redundancies. EI participation in the Global Unions’ drafting process continued for the G20 Summit in Seoul. Linking global and national advocacy EI strongly supported the critical importance of linking global advocacy with national action. Circulars were prepared and sent on a regular basis to members in G20 countries and the EU, to those in OECD member and candidate countries, and others to all member organisations. Each of these circulars emphasised the vital global-national-local link. Another important instrument for mobilisation was the ‘Hands Up for Education’ campaign site which was created in 2009. Links were made to Global Action Week (GAW) organised by the GCE. However, when assessing the effectiveness of these tools – circulars, websites, linking the different streams of EI advocacy – EI staff came to the conclusion that much remains to be done. A meeting of headquarters-based co-ordinators in June identified a number of steps that should be taken to enhance the Hands-Up website. Discussions were also held with co-ordinators from the regions at the beginning of the annual staff meeting in June. Some regional colleagues pointed to the practical difficulties they had experienced when seeking co-operation with NGOs and other coalition partners at regional or national level. Further reflection on ways of improving EI’s capacity to mobilise was undertaken at Executive Board, HQ and regional staff level. 1.2 Organising and supporting activities to achieve the Dakar EFA goals Global Campaign for Education (GCE) EI continued its collaboration with the GCE. The EI representatives attended the face-to-face board meetings: the first one in Brussels, Belgium, in January, the second in Johannesburg, South Africa, in July, and the third in Paris, France, in December. The meetings were mainly dedicated to an assessment of the implementation of the Action Plan adopted in 2008 in Sao Paulo, preparations for the GAW and the 1GOAL Campaign launched in conjunction with the Football World Cup held in South Africa in June-July. The December meeting was focused on preparations for the next assembly to be held in Paris in February 2011. In the run-up to the general assembly, pre-assembly meetings were organised in the regions where EI and its affiliates are present, in particular through the national coalitions for EFA. Global Action Week (GAW) for Education for All, 19-25 April EI, its affiliates, and the 30 million members it represents, participated actively in the GAW campaign. Together with its partners within the GCE, lesson plans, posters and other campaign material were produced to help to get 72 million children into schools by 2015. In order to maximise efforts and take the opportunities available, the GAW theme Financing Quality Public Education: a Right for All was closely linked to the 1GOAL: Education for All campaign which was organised around the FIFA World Cup which took place in June and July in South Africa. Results were presented in New York at the time of the MDGs Summit in September. World Teachers’ Day, 5 October As part of EI's work to promote the 1966 UNESCO-ILO Recommendation on the Status of Teachers and 1997 UNESCO Recommendation on the Status of Higher Education Personnel, EI took a strong lead in promoting World Teachers' Day to both its members and the public. At the official event organised by UNESCO in Paris, EI formed part of the panel representing the signatories of the official statement together with UNESCO, ILO, UNICEF and UNDP. The official website, www.5oct.org, is run by EI and integrated social media to reach as many grassroots education workers as possible. There were 128 picture contributions on Flickr, the highest number since EI’s social media outreach began in 2008, with the highest number of contributions from the Philippines. The Twitter integration was also a huge success, amassing hundreds of tweets across the globe. Twitter was also the main source of inward traffic this year, amounting to 22,000 unique visitors in October, and the content was tweeted from EI in Hungarian, Slovenian and Chinese, as well as the usual English, French and Spanish. 6,000 electronic greeting cards (available in English, French and Spanish, in addition to Catalan, Basque and Galician) were sent out and posters were made available in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Hungarian, Slovenian and Bahasa Indonesia. A bilingual poster in Turkish and Greek was developed for Cyprus, as well as one specifically for Australia and New Zealand. ActionAid International EI continued to co-operate loosely with ActionAid International. (See Parktonian Recommendations) Co-operation with student organisations EI continued to co-operate with the European Students’ Union.

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