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| Gordon Brown in Maputo/David Fish/ActionAid | Nelson Mandela greets GCE campaigners/David Fish/ActionAid | Paul Weinberg / Oxfam / South Africa |
| Past Issues - April 2006 Note: Most hyperlinks will open in a new window. Please close the new window in order to be automatically returned to the GCE site. SPRING MEETINGS OF THE WORLD BANK AND IMF, WASHINGTON DC World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz joined UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Bank Executive Director Jan Willem Van Der Kaaij to call for a massive increase in aid to primary education in the coming months. President Wolfowitz urged all G7 countries to immediately close the $510 million financing gap for 20 countries to have their plans approved through the Education For All Fast-Track Initiative (FTI). This, he said, would allow 16 million children to start school within the next two years. He praised the Netherlands government as a long-term champion of FTI and the UK for announcing £100 million for the initiative on Friday. He pointed out that another 40 countries could be ready to join the initiative by the end of 2008 - but would only come forward if they believe money is on the table. A total of $10 billion per year will be needed to get every child into school. When questioned on which rich countries were 'laggards' in giving aid to education, President Wolfowitz responded ' As far as the US is concerned, on the one hand there has been a significant improvement from 2002 to 2004 from about $100 million to $260 million - if you stop and think about it, that's about $1 per capita whereas I think the UK number is now up to $20 per capita. So the US could do a lot more. So could just about every G7 country with the exception of the UK.' Brown responded by stating the UK's intention to make long-term commitments to countries' Ten Year education strategies. He encouraged other donors to make good on the promises made at Gleneagles in 2005 and spoke of FTI as the 'centrepiece' of efforts to achieve Education For All. Executive Director Van Der Kaaij welcomed the World Bank's leadership and encouraged other donors to come forward. He spoke of education as 'one of the best investments rich countries could ever make.' Minister Okonjo-Iweala spoke passionately of the need for additional resources, especially to ensure that as well as increasing access to education, countries could improve quality. She particularly emphasised the need for investment in quality teachers to prevent children from being pushed out of education. Read the GCE press release on the event... Read the transcript of the press conference... 21 April 2006 WORLD BANK AND IMF DELEGATES REMINDED OF THE NEED OF MILLIONS MORE TEACHERS GCE, Oxfam and the Global AIDS Alliance place a massive job advert word "Millions more teachers and health workers needed to help fight global poverty" in the park outside the World Bank and IMF on 20th April. GCE Flyer: Job Advert: "Help Wanted: Do you have what it takes to educate the next generation?" 22 April 2006 World Bank Delegates are reminded of the case of 'missing teachers' Delegates at the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington arrived to find a gigantic job advertisement, with life-size cut-outs of teachers, doctors and nurses facing them with the fact that four million health workers and two millions teachers are currently 'missing' worldwide because of lack of resources to pay for their training and salaries. Chikondi Mpokosa, a teacher from Malawi explained the reality for teachers in developing countries when she said "…most teachers have to teach class sizes of up to 100 due to the dire shortage of teachers." Chikondi went on to explain one of the reasons for a lack of teachers was, "… the low pay and the low status of teachers in Malawi discourages people from teaching and has exasperated the shortage problems." The shortage of teachers and health workers in poor countries like Malawi is, in part, attributable to the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as they have set such severe economic targets for developing country governments that they cannot afford to pay salaries for teachers, doctors and nurses. Meanwhile, donors have neglected to give the long-term aid needed to support teachers and health workers. Predictability of aid is key – poor countries cannot plan effectively for workers' salaries and training without knowing that aid flows will be secure and support recurrent costs. Education is not the only area affected by a shortage of workers in poor countries, there is also a terrible shortage of health workers as Dr Richard Ssenyonge from Uganda explained, "I worked in a health centre and dealt with the realities of healthcare across Uganda and, indeed, most of Africa – I was responsible for around 10,000 patients, due to shortages of doctors." Rachel Nataylia, a nurse originally from Uganda, currently working in the US made an appeal to the rich world to support poor countries in recruiting and training more health workers: "There are people dying in my country for want of a nurse and doctor. Please do not ignore our call." Rachel also explained the great sadness she had in leaving behind her country but explained that "By the time I left Uganda nurses were being paid only $160 per month, it is just not enough – especially against what we can get in the US... I am responsible for looking after many orphans and the wages in Uganda are not even enough to live on. When asked if Rachel would like to have stayed in Uganda if the pay had been better she said: "definitely, you want to be around your loved ones. It is not easy living in a foreign land. If the pay was better I would go back" View Photographs 22 April 2006 UK pledges $15 billion to education The UK government has pledged $15 billion in aid to education spanning 10 years until 2015. This was announced by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown during his visit to Mozambican schools where he also met President Armando Guebuza, Nelson Mandela, former president of the neighbouring South Africa, and his wife Graca Machel. School children from Mozambique and the UK, representing the Global Campaign for Education joined Mandela and Machel to demand Brown and other world leaders keep their promise to get every child into school and take urgent action to solve shortage of teachers. The GCE, a global coalition of teacher unions, child rights activists, development organisations and international NGOs including ActionAid, welcomes Brown's announcement and the UK's commitment to provide long term funding for education in the country. "This pledge is welcome but we should not forget that on current rates of progress African children will wait another 150 years to enter the school gates," says Gorgui Sow, GCE spokesman in Africa. "In order to plan ambitiously African governments need a guarantee of long term predictable aid from all rich countries. The world will only achieve education for all if there are enough motivated and well-trained teachers and this costs big money." GCE International Press Release 10th April GCE UK Press Release 10th April 10 April 2006 DUTCH REACTION TO THE UK'S ANNOUNCEMENT Over the past few days the Netherlands has followed with great interest the messages that came out of Mozambique and London. First of all, we would like to congratulate our UK colleagues with the strong messages expressed by Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn. With the UK, we hope this commitment will have a strong impact on the other G8 members. From our side, we are very pleased with this announcement and to be frank, we don't feel like we are the only ones who are shouting in the desert any more. As we have indicated several times before and as we have experienced over the past few years, it's now up to us to deliver. With the money not being a problem, the problem is how to deliver, how to make effective use of these resources. The gasoline is there, it's now time to accelerate. For this we think the upcoming months are crucial. The world is looking at us, especially after these strong announcements. We are in a position to make it happen. Building upon the FTI foundation, we have to speed up the expanded financing mechanism and at the same time exploring its boundaries. We have to focus the EPDF on those countries that need our support to develop their credible education sector plans, without losing sight of the need for down-stream support. We need a strong FTI secretariat as a supportive mechanism to make this all happen. To mention only a few of the challenges we face over the next few months. We hope that the upcoming G8 meeting will follow the UK example of turning Gleneagles promises into reality. 10 April 2006 Response from Kailash Satyarthi, President of GCE: "This announcement gives hope that the millennium promises made in 2000, that all children will have the opportunity to attend school, will be kept. But other rich countries need to follow the UK lead, otherwise this will not happen. "We should not forget that on current rates of progress, children from poor countries will wait another 150 years to enter the school gate. In order to plan ambitiously, governments need a guarantee of long-term predictable aid from all rich countries. The world will only achieve education for all if there are enough motivated and well-trained teachers and this costs big money." 10 April 2006 RESPONSE GIVEN TO GORDON BROWN BY MARTA CUMBI, VICE PRESIDENT OF GCE-MOZAMBIQUE (MEPT) I would like to greet you all by name, but we have been granted just three minutes so I will get right to it! My name is Marta Cumbi. I am president of MEPT, the Mozambique coalition of the Global Campaign for Education. We have been campaigning for free quality education since 1999. We understand that today the Chancellor Gordon Brown will make a major announcement on education. For us, it is clear the Chancellor recognises the crisis in global education and has heeded our call. The Global Campaign for Education welcomes the commitment of the UK government to provide long term funding for 10 year plans to ensure free quality education to children around the world. We support the call for poor countries to make their 10 year education plans more ambitious so that we can achieve the MDG goals set for 2015. However, in the world today, there are 100 million children who are denied an education. To get all these children into school by 2015, AND guarantee them a good quality education, at least 15 million more teachers will be needed. Despite numerous promises from rich countries, most of the education plans in poor countries remain shockingly underfunded. As a part of the Chancellors commitment, we would like to see an immediate down payment to the Education for All Fast Track initiative. This global initiative should be at the heart of world wide efforts to get every child into school. With the UK government leading by example, we now call on other European and G8 countries to match the UK 's offer and make their promises on education a reality. Without this, the only lesson children will be learning is how to cope with a life condemned to poverty. So what does this mean for Mozambique? In 2002, donor governments approved Mozambique's education plan. Since then we have built 2000 new schools. Last year we dropped school enrolment fees, giving every child a chance to go to school. But there are still problems. In Mozambique, there are still one million children who are not in school. Of those who do make it to school, most will not make it to the secondary level. For girls, only one in three make it past 5th grade. This is not acceptable. We need 55,000 more teachers. At the moment, the average class size is 70 children. Teachers are badly paid and often leave the profession for the private sector. We need to train more teachers, pay them higher salaries and build at least 6,000 new classrooms every year. To make this a reality, we need long-term predictable funding. Mozambique has seen very little of the money that G8 and European countries promised. We are not alone, there are many other poor countries, especially in Africa , that face the same problems. We urge you to make Education For All a reality so that this decade will be remembered as the decade when we invested in the education of all Africans. Don't let us down. I thank you. 10 April 2006 Global Action Week is Coming! People of all ages are now in full swing of preparing for GCE's next Global Action Week - 24 - 30 th April. National Coalitions will have received a mailing with the latest in terms of planning for the week. This Global Action Week update is also available online at http://www.campaignforeducation.o../action/2007/action.html . To find out more about "EVERY CHILD NEEDS A TEACHER" please visit: The Global Campaign for Education site: www.campaignforeducation.o../action/2007/action.html The Education International site: www.ei-ie.org/globalactionweek/en/index.htm The Netherlands GCE site: www.globalcampaignforeducation.nl/ The Spanish GCE site: www.cme-espana.org/action_profes.html Click to view Past Issues of News
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