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Dear All,
Another February has flown by very quickly leaving us with this year’s Global Action Week around the corner. The theme for this year’s week – Adult and Youth Literacy and Lifelong Learning – has been welcomed warmly by campaigners around the world who are busy preparing their activities for the Big Read. Alongside our coalitions, we have more celebrities and lead figures joining in than ever – given stories, interviews, speeches, and audio recordings to the campaign.
The time is absolutely right for ‘Education for All’ to start taking centre stage. This year’s Global Action Week will hopefully be a fun time to read an inspirational story for millions around the world, but in doing so we will be mobilising mass pressure to enable everyone to be able to read and write and moreover, too see their right to an education guaranteed no matter their age. It’s not too late anyone can get involved in the Big Read. Visit www.campaignforeducation.org/bigread to find out how.
Best wishes,
GCE Secretariat
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CONTENTS
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| GCE NEWS |
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Big Read |
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 You can now download and register for the Big Read www.campaignforeducation.org/bigread. The Big Read is GCE’s Action Week 2009 activity that will take place during 20th – 26th April 2009. The campaign is designed to mobilise maximum support for Adult and Youth Literacy and Lifelong Learning through the act of reading and writing and story telling. There are stories and speeches from many international figures including Nelson Mandela and Queen Rania alongside inspirational stories from people who have struggled to get an education. Encourage members to register and we will send through updates as new stories are added and resources become available. A media pack with advice of how to use the Big Read will be available in March.
Coalitions are busy organising Big Read events around the world, please send your latest activities planned through to
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for us to share through the newsletter and website. |
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GCE Board in Bangladesh |
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 The GCE Board convened in Dhaka, Bangladesh at the end of January. CAMPE and former Board member Rasheda Choudhury were kind enough to arrange a variety of additional activities, including site visits, Ministerial meetings and cultural events. Board discussions ranged from debates on the global financing architecture for education and the centrality of closing the professional teacher gap to the upcoming VI CONFINTEA and Civil Society International Forum between 17-22 May in Brazil and the exciting possibilities arising from a new partnership with FIFA. A consultation on a new approach to financing global education is currently underway in the GCE membership. |
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Window of opportunity to influence the IMF |
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 A major implication of a policy focus on teachers is that GCE should advocate for policies that permit low income countries (LICs) to hire the teachers they need. This includes confronting International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions that constrain investment in public services. In 2007 an independent evaluation of lending in Africa found that in a large number of cases, aid was being diverted into reserves to satisfy the IMF’s definition of macro-economic stability. Not only that, but governments are often prevented from mobilizing domestic resources because of the IMF’s requirement that they stick to rigid short-term fiscal targets such as below 5% inflation and zero budget deficits.
GCE will be advocating that the review of lending to LICs address the very low inflation and deficit spending targets it prescribes to SSA countries (what is SSA?), take account of the restrictions on aid flows resulting from these policies and explore macroeconomic policies that enable rather than block delivery of human services such as education and health. We will also call on our members to support this effort by signing on to letters to be directed to representatives on the IMF Board, national authorities such as their Ministers of Finance, Education and Development and parliamentarians who have oversight authority on these sectors and the national budget. |
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| CAMPAIGN NEWS |
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Mauritus: DCI |
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 The Cabinet has agreed to implement recommendations of an action plan on Child Safety. A member of DCI – the Internet Child Safety Foundation – ICSF is a member of the national committee on child safety and their research has been instrumental in bringing about this new National Acton Plan. Read more on their website www.icsfonline.org |
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Kenya: Elimu Yetu |
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 The Kenya education coalition – Elimu Yetu Coalition (EYC) has a new Campaign Manager – Mr Ndolo Asasa, bringing the EYC secretariat to a team of three and increasing the capacity for coordinating campaigns and outreach in Kenya, especially in the run up to Action Week plans in April. |
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| EDUCATION NEWS |
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World Social Forum |
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 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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Women’s Rights and EFA |
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Equals 23 (the latest newsletter from Gender, Development & Education: Beyond Access) explores the connections and disconnections between the Education For All movement and organisations working on women’s rights. Articles written by education campaigners and women’s rights activists explore some of the reasons behind the lack of collaboration between education and women’s rights campaigners as well as giving examples of projects and campaigns where activists from the two movements are successfully working together.
Download the issue here.
Find out more about Beyond Access here
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UNESCO: ESD |
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The ‘World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)’ will take place from the 31st March – 2nd April in Bonn, Germany. Five years into the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, the conference aims to highlight the relevance of ESD to all of education; promote international exchanges on ESD, especially between countries of the North and the South; carry out a stock-taking of the implementation of the UN Decade, and develop strategies for the way ahead.
Find out more on their website |
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FRANCE: Demonstrations against privatisation in education |
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 Thousands of students, parents and teachers took to the streets in France again to protest against the Government’s proposed education reforms. The movement is demanding in particular that the University Reform laws recently voted by Parliament be scrapped. This new legislation is part of a move towards what is called “autonomy” of universities but what teachers, Unions, and students denounce as privatisation reforms which undermine public education and weaken collective rights and teacher status.
Click here to read more |
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CONFINTEA deadline coming up |
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 National education coalitions around the world have been actively engaged in the preparatory process for the UNESCO-led CONFINTEA conference on adult learning and non-formal education. The outcome documents from the regional conferences are now all finalized and the countdown is on to the conference itself. The GCE Secretariat is in dialogue with the conference organizers to ensure that the messages from The Big Read – Global Action Week 2009, are brought to all the participants. GCE members will be out in force to make a big impact.
The deadline for registration for CONFINTEA is 6th March. Please go to http://www.unesco.org/en/confinteavi for more details. |
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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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