Growth, Challenges, Solidarity
In 2006, Education International continued
to pursue its main aims with tremendous
energy and commitment. Throughout
this year’s Annual Report, readers will
find ample evidence of the hard work,
dedication and creativity of EI affiliates
and activists, all of whom devoted countless
hours to our dream of quality education
for all worldwide.
This was a year of growth and greater global interconnections for EI. In February, the member organizations of the World Confederation of Teachers voted to join EI, the culmination of a significant unifying process. In addition, 54 new affiliates joined EI in 2006, bringing our total membership to an impressive 30 million educators in 169 countries and territories. We welcome these new member organizations and look forward to working with them in the years to come.
It has also been a year to build closer ties of solidarity across sectors and around the world. On 1 November 2006, we witnessed a landmark in the history of the labour movement: the founding of the International Trade Union Confederation, which brings together an awesome 168 million members! Working with the ITUC, EI will have greater influence on key issues at global level. We are also proud that a former vice-president of EI, Sharan Burrow, was elected ITUC’s first president.
Realizing the great vision of the Millennium Development Goals and achieving Education for All remained our top priority. Almost halfway to 2015 much has been accomplished, but much remains to be done. This year UNESCO issued a stark warning: the world faces a dramatic teacher shortage. Developing countries will need 13 million more teachers, and the industrialized nations will need five million more. In order to attract and retain those millions, the teaching profession needs to offer adequate wages, decent working conditions and greater respect.
EI affiliates in every region lobbied governments and even went on strike to back demands for increased public investment in public education, including improved salaries for teachers, millions of whom still work at or below poverty levels. We also advocated for the abolition of primary school fees and a stop to the rapid increase in tuition fees for higher education, as they pose significant barriers to access.
This year EI expanded and consolidated its work on HIV and AIDS as key obstacles to Education for All. The impact of the pandemic is overwhelming. Students left orphaned or dying, families destroyed, communities decimated, schools emptied, the teaching forces diminished: our members are confronting these tragedies every day. All of us at EI are proud of the work we and our member unions have done and continue to do on HIV and AIDS. Our programme now is active in 35 countries, and we have plans to expand it in Latin America and Asia. We will mourn those lost, celebrate our successes, and carry on teaching for life!
Hand in hand with work towards EFA is advocacy for equality rights. EI encouraged equal access to education of girls and women, worked to narrow the gender gap in teachers’ pay scales, and acted in defence of LGBT rights in schools and society.
This year EI also continued its pro-active programme of global advocacy in defense of human and trade union rights, and professional and academic freedoms. When teacher union leaders were attacked or imprisoned, or member unions repressed, EI launched Urgent Action Appeals and affiliates responded with waves of protests to the governments concerned. In 2006, EI requested the direct intervention of the ILO Director General regarding trade union rights violations in 11 countries: Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Korea, Macedonia, Nepal, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
As every year, 2006 witnessed large-scale catastrophes, both natural and man-made. Whether it was in response to a landslide, an earthquake, or armed conflict, Education International and the teachers it represents reached out to raise awareness, alleviate pain and support students as communities struggled to rebuild. In April, the first of the schools built by EI and Oxfam-NOVIB was completed in Aceh, Indonesia. Due to the ongoing conflict in Sri Lanka, reconstruction plans there had to be scaled back. By year’s end, however, 18 schools had been completed in tsunami-stricken areas of Southeast Asia.
This year EI continued to build capacity in the area of research, strengthening our international research network and establishing a new EI Research Foundation. Work on PISA and the OECD agenda for education continued to be high profile, as did advocacy through the Bologna Process on such issues as mobility of faculty and students.
EI and other GUFs continued to express concerns about the relentless thrust towards privatization of education and other vital public services such as health and water. We maintained close watch on the GATS talks, and published a number of TradEducation newsletters to reaffirm our key message that education is not a commodity to be bought and sold on the international market.
In 2006, EI continued to develop a positive communications strategy for the future. In today’s media-saturated world, it is often difficult for the voices of educators to be heard. Indeed, many governments seek to silence teachers. Why? Because our voices are powerful. When teachers question injustice, when they advocate for their rights and those of their students, and especially when they organize themselves into unions, teachers demonstrate skills and knowledge that can be transformative.
The universal story of teaching and learning is political as well as pedagogical; how we choose to nurture the intellect of the emerging generation illustrates, in a fundamental way, a society’s priorities for the future.
Despite the many obstacles, now more than ever teacher trade unionists must speak out loudly and clearly. There is too much at stake for the future of democratic public education, and the life chances of hundreds of millions of children depend on access to free, quality schooling.
All of which is why it is so important for Education International and its affiliates to raise a strong collective voice in the global dialogue on education. With your support, we certainly intend to do so!
