Early in March, representatives of fourteen EI affiliates across the Caribbean met in Trinidad for an intensive session of workshops on HIV & AIDS education and achieving Education For All (EFA). At the event, participants provided feedback on the work currently being carried out by the unions in these areas and exchanged ideas as to how to expand upon this work with those unions participating in the EI EFAIDS Programme (GTU, Guyana and CNEH, Haiti). The session culminated with the development by participants of project action plans for their unions on HIV and AIDS and EFA based on five core activities: research, policy development, advocacy, publicity and training. For more information, contact us.

From 21-23 March, EI in collaboration with the FNV (Dutch Confederation of Trade Unions) held a workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to increase awareness among women in the South East Asian sub-region on HIV/AIDS and to enable them to deal with the issue in their professions, unions and in society. A total of 21 leading unionists from 6 countries (Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) participated along with representatives from EI, UNESCO and UNAIDS. The workshop revealed that actions undertaken to fight HIV/AIDS varied widely from country to country and lacked a focus on the role of education and teachers. Nonetheless, some progress was noted: in Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam governments are in the process of including HIV/AIDS education in the curriculum from the elementary level. For more information, please contact us.

From 20-22 March, the EI Regional Office in Latin America convened a workshop on Education For All (EFA) with affiliates in Brazil (CNTE), Argentina (CTERA), Chile (CPC), Peru (SUTEP), Ecuador (UNE), Columbia (FECODE), Honduras (COLPROSUMAH) and Nicaragua (ANDEN). Held in Buenos Aires, the underlying objective was to promote the inclusion of EFA issues in the work of member organisations in Latin America.

At the workshop, participating organisations vowed to set up a committee to monitor the action taken by their Ministers of Education in respect of the commitments made at the World Education Forum in Dakar (2000). Here, it was noted that governments in Latin America have not made the necessary efforts towards achieving the Dakar goals and that in the absence of greater political will, reaching the 2015 target would not be feasible. For more information, please contact us.

As part of ongoing efforts to establish links with journalists in developing countries, EI staff took part in a European Union Seminar for journalists from French-speaking ACP countries. The seminar, which took place in Brussels on February 23rd, was part of a series of in-depth briefings about EU policies targeting poverty reduction and combating HIV/AIDS. The event gave EI staff the opportunity to speak to journalists about the EI programme on EFA and HIV/AIDS (or “EFAIDS Programme”). As a result, a number of the participating journalists will be joining forces with EI to write articles on the work of affiliates in the area of HIV/AIDS and EFA. For more information, please contact us.

In Latin America, three countries namely Bolivia, Nicaragua and Honduras, qualify for the support of the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) which focuses on achieving quality primary education for all by 2015. In February 2005 research was commissioned by EI Latin America and Norwegian EI affiliate Utdanningsforbundet (Union of Education Norway) seeking to evaluate the impact of specific World Bank education policies and the pressure which these initiatives exert on the three poorest (FTI) countries in Latin America.

The research revealed that although education reform was and continues to be necessary, financing the reform remains a major issue: these countries have largely failed to recover from the aftershock of structural adjustment, education reform continues to be financed externally and the debt situation has only worsened since the FTI was put in place. The research concludes that, as it stands, education reform is not sustainable without foreign aid and is thereby worsening dependency in these countries. For more information, please contact us.

The Global Unions have launched a new campaign aimed at convincing heads of state at the G8 Summit in Russia next July to create a permanent high-level working group on HIV/AIDS.

EI, as one of the 10 Global Union Federations, is joining in on this initiative by calling on affiliates in G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, US) to adapt the attached letter and send it to their head of state as soon as possible. Please let us know if your organisation has taken this action by contacting us.

African Ministers of Education, government representatives from donor countries, NGOs and academics all met in Libreville (Gabon) from March 27 -31 for the biennial ADEA (Association for the Development of Education in Africa) Conference. At the event, concern was expressed that although progress has been made, many countries still will not succeed in achieving the Dakar Goals and that considerable additional effort would have to be made.

Through various interventions, EI representatives Assibi Napoe and Samuel Ngoua Ngou emphasised the need to involve unions in education programmes and policies. They rejected the views expressed by some funding agencies that class sizes of up to 60 are acceptable and would not impact quality. They also emphasised that the duration and quality of pre-service training is crucial and is linked to better performance among students. Many research documents of interest were produced for the ADEA Conference. They can be viewed and downloaded at www.adeanet.org.

UNESCO/UNICEF has just published a new joint report entitled "Children Out of School: Measuring Exclusion from Primary Education." On the basis of survey data from 80 countries, the research presents new estimates on the number of children out of school worldwide. According to the report, one hundred and fifteen million primary school-age children - or almost one in five of the children worldwide in this age group - are out of school. To access the report (currently available in English and soon to be available in French), please click here.

“ CNEH is now gearing itself up to extend its focus beyond HIV/AIDS to Education for All, as is foreseen within the framework of the new EFAIDS Programme. To this end, CNEH will seek to sensitise all sectors of Haitian society on the Education For All goals set out in Dakar in 2000. In concrete terms, we plan to begin by producing a situational analysis regarding access to education in Haiti which will help us to develop a policy on it.”

“ First of all, CNEH is putting together an action plan to identify the number of children who do not have access to education. Furthermore we are compiling a census on the number of single-teacher schools in Haiti based on information submitted by our branches. Maps are being prepared on the basis of this census pinpointing all of the single-teacher schools which are badly in need of attention.”

“ I think it is fair to say that the work we are carrying out on HIV/AIDS education is going very well, given that we have been able to get quite a number of worthwhile training activities off the ground. It is for this reason that we feel it is important to continue to build on this work, integrating the element of Education For All into our programme activities. I am optimistic that we can achieve positive results from this.”