 This year, the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil, was host to the World Social Forum. Among the thousands of workshops and seminars (of which 340 were on education issues), several were organized by International and Latin American GCE members. In the first meeting organized by CLADE, representatives from various education CSOs (including CEAL, REPEM, Fe Y Alegria) discussed commonly-used notions and terms in education, such as inclusion, participation, rights, and quality and the dispute of meanings around these terms. Even though most of the participants shared common fundamentals in terms of defining these words, the main issue discussed was the way in which the dominant normative forces manage to capture some of these concepts, rearrange them and impose their own meaning and agenda. Another event organized by CLADE and partner organizations was on the upcoming CONFINTEA VI (International Conference on Adult Education) and the Civil Society International Forum (FISC) which will precede it, with which GCE is engaged and supportive of. FISC and CONFINTEA will take place between the 17th – 22nd May, also in Belem, Brazil.Two further meetings were organised by Brazil’s National Campaign for the Right to Education, one presenting a new book on the financing of education under the Lula Government and the other highlighting the activities proposed for this year’s Global Action Week. The GCE Secretariat took the opportunity to make a presentation on quality, one of our priority issues, and how this notion is undermined by market-driven managerial concepts.
At the closure of the WSF, the Social Movements Assembly read a declaration appealing to global convergence of sectoral organizations to create a unified front against the root causes of the current world crisis. It called for a number of urgent measures including guaranteeing rights to land, territory, work, education and health for all.
“We must work towards a society that meets social needs and respects nature’s rights as well as supporting democratic participation in a context of full political freedom. We must see to it that all international treaties on our indivisible civic, political, economic, social and cultural rights, both individual and collective, are implemented.”
Read the full statement here
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