Policy and Advocacy

GCE policy engagement is reflected in GCE statements, briefings, analysis and presentations and it is inspired by the Right to Education conceptual and normative framework, leading CGE to develop advocacy actions from national to international scenarios, based on fact-finding oriented research and on the needs of the historically excluded communities from education opportunities.

Policy and advocacy action requires constant feedback from the membership, in order to respond to diverse political realities and counteract the powerful regressive forces against human rights, so GCE works to promote, influence, advocate and put pressure on different stakeholders, institutions and governments, in order to advance the struggle for the human right to education for all. This work is based on the strategic planning of the movement and includes among its aims the participation of young people in decision-making.

GCE’s strategic role is to ensure that the voice of grass-root civil society organisations is heard at regional and international policy making bodies. The movement is represented as GCE or through its members in the most important international bodies in the education sector:

In partnership with the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), Education International (EI) and the European Student Union (ESU) the movement created the Education Academia Stakeholder Group (EASG) to represent education and the civil society at the United Nation High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development Goals. The EASG organises every year a side event to emphasise the links between education and the SDGs being evaluated.

Recently, the GCE was granted a Special Consultative status at the UN Social and Economic Council (ECOSOC). The status will give the movement greater access within the UN system, especially to human rights bodies.

The GCE represents education civil society as well during the World Bank annual meetings, the UN General Assembly, the G7 and G20.

The Advocacy Strategic Framework

The GCE’s Advocacy Strategic Framework aims at identifying, complementing and supporting the regional and national members’ own agendas and priority areas. Advocacy is a GCE fundamental role, as the promotion and defence of the human right to education is in the heart of our movement.

At the core of the framework is the need for CGE to strengthen the evidence based advocacy in order to address the regressive trend of international cooperation for education, privatisation, as well as the reductionist views on educational quality and the processes of exclusion that affect the discriminated population, especially persons with disabilities, girls and women.

GCE should exert credible and informed influence on national, regional and international education policy, through leading consistent advocacy processes aimed at ensuring that governments and the global community fulfil their commitments to deliver the right to education and achieve the SDG Goal 4 of the Education 2030 agenda.

To achieve that goal, GCE set out key advocacy areas of work:

  • Promote the effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goal 4/Education 2030 Agenda.
  • Influence the global agenda by promoting holistic approaches to education quality that go beyond learning outcomes.
  • Promote GCE call for action on financing education, considering both developing and donor countries alike.
  • Promote increased support and state commitment in providing free public education.
  • Strengthen inclusion and gender equality in education.
  • Advocate for civil society organisations participation in decision-making and accountability processes, including those led by students and teachers.
  • Promote youth and adult education and early childhood education as key components of the Lifelong Learning global agenda.

Capacity Building

GCE organises webinars, regional workshops, digital trainings and the production of manuals to strengthen capacity and shared learning for advocacy in priority campaign topics, like Voluntary National Reviews-VNR (on SDG achievements or performance) , spotlight reports on SDG implementation, education financing, privatisation, education in emergencies; strengthen campaigning capacity within the membership through dissemination of supporting materials and best practices, encouraging more linkages with the grassroots and citizens engagement.

Research

GCE conducts and taps into action research to deliver strong evidence-based advocacy, either fact-based from grassroots knowledge or academic papers. To support its members, GCE’s research for advocacy activities focuses on; (i) Supporting regional and national coalitions in designing and implementing policy-oriented research in line with the GCE strategic areas and national/regional coalitions priorities; and (ii) Supporting coalitions to conduct research, evaluations and publications in line with their respective areas of focus on education advocacy.

Learning and Sharing

Rooted in GCE’s monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) system, capacity building and shared learning activities are key elements of GCE’s implementation of its programmes and its key strategic mechanisms to building a strong global education movement. GCE has embedded capacity building and shared learning as a holistic approach to invest and ensure that all GCE members from different levels have the capacity and knowledge to effectively and collaboratively contribute to GCE’s strategic objectives and goal of holding governments to account in their commitment made to deliver free public quality education for all. In doing so, GCE ensures that capacity building and shared learning structures are established, activated and facilitated across the movement to inform strong collaborations, reflections and improved decision-making processes. Through a combination of actions undertaken under each strategic objective and the implementation of various programmes at national, regional and global levels, GCE supports the movement to maximise its advocacy and campaigning capacity, by creating shared learning platforms and opportunities which focus serving both thematic and technical knowledge needs. GCE’s approach to this remains agile, ranging from undertaking research; monitoring & evaluation; production of evidence-based learning resources and best practices; face to face workshops and learning events at national, regional and global levels; and setting up of online interactive platforms and processes; i.e. Membership Engagement and Knowledge hub, MEL online system, and Communities of Practice.

Impact Communication

Guided by the 2019-2022 strategic plan GCE communication approach seeks to apply the following priority strategic areas: Inclusivity and non-discrimination, Transformative education, Education in emergencies and Financing education. The approach is also centred around amplifying the global education movement and GCE members voices. Voices that seek to end exclusion in education and education as a basic human right, and hold governments accountable and responsible for delivering the right for all to a free, quality, public education.

To facilitate effective communication, GCE set up active communication channels at all levels in order to support the strengthening of the education movement. It is this mechanism that is used to deliver coherent communication strategy for global narrative and offer up-to-date and accessible information to members, by turning the GCE website, GCE members portal and GCE e-learning platform into a mobilising, learning and sharing tools. In addition, GCE develops toolkits and undertakes communication-based capacity building to ensure NECs have the same understanding and abilities to effectively communicate on their advocacy campaigns. GCE aims to implement common tools to support NECs and RCs, like a global media monitoring platform.

Resources
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The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that aims to end exclusion in education. Education is a basic human right, and our mission is to make sure that governments act now to deliver the right of everyone to a free, quality, public education.