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Dear All,
In the storm of worldwide economic meltdown and rocketing food and oil prices, everyone's feeling the hit - but one thing's clear it's the poorest who stand the most to lose. Poor countries progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, not least on education, risk being swept away by any reductions in social spending as a result of the global recession. Measures must be put in place immediately to protect the world's poorest and the opportunity is now.
On the 15th- 16th November leaders from twenty nations, the European Commission, IMF and World Bank gathered at an emergency G20 meeting in Washington to discuss what should be done to tackle the global financial crisis. The meeting failed to address the effect of the economic fallout on the world's poorest countries, and the contradictory behaviour of the international financing institutions. Whilst the G20 member nations are expected to cushion the economic crash by increasing spending, poorer countries are still expected to curtail social spending and guard against inflation rising.
This contradictory behaviour must stop. Teachers are not luxury choice spend items that can be cut. A good education is not only a basic human right, but an investment in education is essential for the growth of individual assets and national economies.
Read on to discover what the Global Campaign for Education is currently doing to fight for education rights for all people and the other happenings in the news,
Regards,
Gorgui Sow
(GCE Board Member and Coordinator of the Africa Network Campaign on Education for All)
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CONTENTS
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| GCE NEWS |
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Action Week 2009: The Big Read |
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 The Resource Pack: the campaign Resource Pack for Action Week 2009 is now ready. This pack's the second pack (after the Planning Pack) aimed at coalitions and members to help preparations for Action Week (20th - 26th April), and for the Big Read day itself 22nd April. The poster and leaflet designs and elements are also now ready.
Download the resource pack and the materials design here
Registration: Coalitions that have registered for Action Week and member organizations will be receiving these material designs on a CD in the next few weeks in a mailing with GCE's annual Big Book. Incase you haven't registered please do send your registration form to
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immediately, so that the resources can be mailed to you.
The Big Read: National coalitions should be approaching authors that they would like to include in the Big Read. Any national authors or advocates to be included in the international Big Read must be submitted to
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by the 12th January.
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GCE's 2009 Calendar |
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 This annual poster is in the format of a 2009 GCE Calendar, made up of campaign photos from around the world. Download the 2009 Calendar here.
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2008 Big Book and Big Film |
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 The 2008 Big Book and Big Film are also ready, bringing together photos, stories, and achievements from this year's Action Week and the World's Biggest Lesson. The Big Book will be mailed to registered coalitions shortly.
In the meantime you can download the Big Book here and view the Big Film here.
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Quality Workshops |
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 3rd - 4th November: The first of a series of joint coalition/Secretariat workshops was held, building on the telephone consultation on quality conducted in August and September. The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) participated in a two-day workshop that generated exciting ideas on how to define and measure quality in the Zambian context. ZANEC's concerns centred on school infrastructure, teachers and teaching, and school governance and participation. Following much hard work by everyone, we were successful in developing and prioritising measurable indicators for these themes, and started a process of working up an advocacy strategy to promote government action on them. Later this month, similar events will be held in Peru and Nepal and the outcomes of all will be considered by the Board to assist GCE to upscale its work at the global level on quality, and to guide our support to national coalitions on this vital theme.
Workshop reports will be available by mid-December on the GCE website. For any questions, please contact Patrick Watkins
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.
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High Level Group |
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The Global Campaign for Education is preparing to participate in the 2009 Education for All High Level Group taking place in Oslo 16th - 18th December. The meeting is set to discuss governance, financing education and teachers. On the eve of the meeting a panel of discussion is planned with lead advocates, celebrities, young people and officials to discuss progress towards Education for All. Look out for more details about the meeting in next months' e-newsletter.
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Stand Against Poverty |
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 An impressive 116,993,629 people took part the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP's) Stand Up and Take Action between the 17th and 19th October. GCE supported the action that saw almost 2% of the world's population taking part demanding action against poverty, and towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Read more on http://www.standagainstpoverty.org
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GCE attends IMF/WB annual meetings |
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 Hundreds of civil society observers attended the IMF and World Bank annual meetings including the Global Campaign for Education. Given the financial crisis occupying so much attention outside in the 'real world', campaigners were surprised to hear yet again the same policy prescriptions for Sub-Saharan Africa and other poorer countries: single-digit inflation, low budget deficits and trade liberalization. The absence of new plans for action is concerning, as different rules seem to apply to rich countries, now planning to abandon traditional monetarist policies and run up large budget deficits to finance massive public investment programmes.
An up-coming review of the IMF's lending to low-income countries will occur over the coming months and GCE is positioning to use that process to underscore how restrictive macroeconomic policies affect teachers and the education sector, and to call for change. Watch this space to find out how your national coalition can contribute to this process.
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| CAMPAIGN NEWS |
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Kenya: Elimu Yetu's hosts pre CONFINTEA VI meeting |
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 Elimu Yetu Coalition (EYC) - Kenya's National education coalitions organized Africa's civil society summit prior to CONFINTEA VI on 3rd October 2008. The summit brought together 35 International participants from the major EFA networks including ANCEFA, PAALAE, FAWE, EI, FEMNET, Pamoja Africa REFLECT Network.
For more details contact EYC on
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Guatemala signs Government Agreement canceling school fees |
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 Colectivo de Educación para Todas y Todos welcomes the government's signature of Agreement Nº 226, which states the canceling the school fees established in 1968, and plans ways to monitor the new agreement implementation.
Following pressure from the coalition on the government's non-complience of its obligation to guarantee a compulsory and free primary education for all, on September 12 Government authorities signed the document that reaffirms free primary education and expressly forbids any kind of fees.
Read the full article here
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Interview - professor Rodolfo Meoño, from Costa Rica |
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 In an interview with CLADE Rodolfo Meoño (Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies of the National University of Costa Rica) stressed the need for nation states to eliminate all costs of education, direct and indirect, and shows that this obligation is present in the international legislation concerning the protection of human rights stating, “Every human being has the right to free education throughout life”.
Read the full interview here
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Guatemalan indigenous woman tells a story of discrimination regarding the right to education |
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In the workshop “Justiciability of the Right to Education in Central America”, Angélica Macario Quino presented proof that the State is not fulfilling its obligation.
“My personal story is a typical example of most indigenous peoples in Guatemala. My mother tongue is quiché; when I first arrived at school I had to learn Spanish, due to the lack of bilingual education. Since there were no bilingual teachers I had to repeat first grade”, recounted Angélica Macario Quino in the workshop “Justiciability of the Right to Education”, promoted by CLADE.
Read up about the workshop that took place in Guatemala City 2nd - 3rd October. Click here
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Save the Children: Education in Emergencies Toolkit |
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Education in Emergencies covers the whole process of emergency education, from planning and setting up a programme, to running it on a day-to-day basis and preparing for future emergencies. Topics covered include:
- putting the case for resources for emergency education to donors and governments
- working within an 'education cluster' to avoid duplication and gaps in provision
- how to make sure the education you deliver is good quality
- the basics of running a programme - training teachers, helping children cope with trauma, recruiting staff, equipping classrooms.
The publication costs £14.99 and can be ordered from the Save the Children UK website Click here to read more
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Basic Education Coalition lobbies the US Government |
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 5th - 17th September: CCF, Care and AIR advocates, under BEC joined hands to lobby both Congress and Senate in Washington to support the upcoming EFA bill. If enacted the law will profoundly increase the US government support (through new resources) to EFA goals, particularly basic education in the developing world.
Read the lobbying update here
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| EDUCATION NEWS |
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Civil Society Principles for CONFINTEA VI |
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Read the A Charter of Principles has been set for the International Civil Society Forum that will take place prior to CONFINTEA VI. Read these principles here
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EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009 |
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25th November: The next EFA Global Monitoring Report entitled “Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance Matters?” was launched on the 25th November, at the International Conference on Education (Geneva, Switzerland).
Find out more here http://www.efareport.unesco.org/
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9th Meeting of the Working Group on Education for All - November 12 to 14 |
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The Ninth Working Group meeting on Education for All met at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, to discuss four key topics: the role of education in meeting global challenges and the Millennium Development Goals; teachers; equity and governance; and education financing. The decisions were informed by the 2009 EFA Global Monitoring Report. Recommendations from this meeting will be presented at the Eighth High-Level Group meeting on EFA (Oslo, Norway, 16 to 18 December, 2008).
Read more on the UNESCO website Click here
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Mozambique: Not Enough Trained Teachers |
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 Despite the efforts undertaken to step up teacher training, the Mozambican Education Ministry simply will not have enough trained teachers available to fill all of next year's teaching vacancies. The Ministry's national director of human resources has acknowledged that, of the 12,000 new teachers needed for the 2009 school year; only 6,902 will graduate this year from the teacher training institutes. All those expected to graduate this year will have taken a crash one-year teacher training course. 5,840 of them have 10 years of basic education, and the remaining 1,062 have completed secondary education (through 12th grade).
Read the full article available here Click here
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Global Health Watch 2: An Alternative World Health Report |
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 Global Health Watch, an initiative of the People's Health Movement, Global Equity Gauge Alliance and Medact, to bring together academics, civil society organisations and social movements to promote health and improve the performance of global health institutions. The second report consists of over twenty chapters, including a chapter on Health and Education by the Global Campaign for Education.
The book can be found on www.ghwatch.org
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The Women's Commission new reports |
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 Living in Limbo is an assessment report on the educational and skills building needs of young people from Burma living in refugee camps in Thailand. The report highlights how refugee youth have few opportunities to continue their studies or to put into practice what they have learned, and as a result, are becoming increasingly frustrated and despondent about their futures. The report includes recommendations for the Thai government, donors, UN agencies, NGOs and local communities to support displaced youth to become more self-reliant.
The report can be downloaded from Click here
Market Assessment Toolkit for Vocational Training Providers and Youth - a combination of questionnaires and activities to assist vocational training providers and youth in gathering information on local market demand and translating it into improved programming.
The toolkit is available at: Click here
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UNGEI: Education from a Gender Perspective |
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 This paper presents the Gender Equality Framework, which has been designed to address this inequality in education. This tool for education programmers helps ensure that education projects meet the needs of all learners. The report concludes that quality, retention, and achievement are essential elements of an education strategy designed to ensure that boys and girls maximise their full potential.
Read the recommendations and download the report here
Click here
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CREATE Research: EFA, the quality imperative and the problem of pedagogy |
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 This research monograph by Robin Alexander, examines the emerging discourse on quality associated with Education for All (EFA), providing a critique of typical quality indicator frameworks from international and EFA sources, in the context of recent education developments in India.
Download the report here Click here
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ABOUT THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR EDUCATION (GCE):
The Global Campaign for Education (GCE)is a movement to end the worldwide crisis in education. Thousands of development charities, trade unions and child rights groups make up the national coalitions in over 100 countries. Together we campaign and lobby governments to make sure they act now to deliver the right of every girl, boy, woman and man to a free, quality education.
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GCE'S MEMBERS:
Regional & International Organisations: ActionAid International, ANCEFA, ASPBAE, CAMFED, CARE, CEAAL, CLADE, Comic Relief, Early Childhood Care & Development, Education International, FAPE, FAWE, Fe y Alegria, Fundacion Ayuda en Accion, Global March Against Child Labour, Ibis, IDAY, Inclusion International, Leonard Cheshire Global Alliance, Light of the World: Christoffel Development Organisation, NetAid, OEB/CEDEAO, Oxfam International, Plan International, Public Services International, REPEM, Save the Children Alliance, SightSavers International, VSO, World Alliance of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, World Vision International
National Civil Society Coalitions: Albania: ACCE, Argentina: CAPDE, Armenia: ACRPC, Bangladesh : CAMPE, Benin: CBO-EPT, Bolivia: FEB, Brazil: CDE, Burkina Faso: CCEB, Cambodia: NGO Education Partnership, Cameroon: EFA Network, Canada: Canadian Global Campaign for Education Chile: FECPT, Costa Rica: MERCC, El Salvador: CIAZO, France: Solidarite-Laique, Gabon: SENA, Gambia: GEFA, Germany: GCE, Ghana: GNECC, Guatemala: CETT,. India: NCE, Indonesia: E-Net for Justice, Ireland: GCE Coalition, Japan: JNNE, Kenya: Elimu Yetu Coalition, Lesotho: LEFA, Liberia: LETCOM, Malawi: CSCQBE, Mauritius: DCI, Mexico: ICE, Mozambique: MEPT, Nepal: GCE, Nicaragua: Foro Net, Niger: ROSEN, Nigeria: CSACEFA, Norway: Union of Education, Pakistan: PCE, Peru: MPDEP,Philippines: E-Net, Romania: GCE, Senegal: CONGAD, Sierra Leone: EFA Network, Solomon Islands: COESI, South Africa: GCE-SA, Spain: GCE Coalition, Sri Lanka: CED, Sweden: EFA Forum, Tanzania: TEN/MET, The Netherlands: GCE, Togo: CNT/CME, Uganda: FENU, UK:GCE-UK, Vietnam: GCE, Zambia:ZANEC, Zimbabwe: Teachers Association
To apply for membership please contact
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Find out more about GCE on our website www.campaignforeducation.org
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