Ei-iE

Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child - a defining moment in history, when for the first time, all children around the world were viewed as human beings with their own set of rights, including the right to a quality education.

More than five million children in the world are forced to work as slaves, with working days reaching 18 hours per day. The right to education is just one of many human rights that they are deprived of.

The nearly five-month investigation, reported on the EI website yesterday, into claims that a student teacher had inappropriately touched youngsters at a preschool in Manhattan has ended with the dismissal of all criminal charges, according to the New York times today.

The Danish pre-school teachers union, BUPL, is seeking financial support from other EI affiliates, to assist with payment of the huge legal costs of defending a member of the union who has been accused of ‘inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature ’ at a preschool in New York.

EI has roundly condemned the latest atrocities perpetrated against students and teachers by Islamist extremists in northern Nigeria.

News reports indicated a few days ago that the 43 Mexican students who disappeared in southern Mexico in September were abducted by police on order of a local mayor, and are believed to have been turned over to a gang that killed them and burned their bodies before throwing some...

Teacher unionists were among over 100,000 demonstrators who took to the streets of Brussels, Belgium, on 6 November to fight budgetary reform measures planned by the Belgian federal Government that will affect workers severely.

Teacher unions in Kenya are urging the Government to allow and support the ongoing negotiations on their basic salaries, and demand the approval of a new collective bargaining agreement.

The long arm of the Hungarian government has reached into the country’s classrooms, leaving many fearful that authorities are preparing to tighten their grip on the teaching profession and undermine the role of education unions.

Trade union rights and women’s rights and their implementation were at the forefront of discussions at a recent workshop held by EI in the Arab region.

The Ebola epidemic has brought education to a halt in Sierra Leone, shuttering classrooms across the country, leaving all teachers, children, and communities affected as the disease continues to claim lives.

A strike in FYROM's education sector announced by ETUCE's Macedonian member organisation SONK on 29 September 2014 was averted at the very last moment. Following ETUCE's written intervention at the Macedonian Ministry of Education and ETUCE's ad hoc meeting with SONK in Skopje, the Ministry had suddenly agreed to return...

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi have been awarded the Nobel peace prize “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”.

Outrage across Mexico continues to grow as frantic search efforts are ongoing to find 43 students taken by Mexican municipal police alleged to be controlled by drug cartels in the city of Iguala.

Education International joins its US affiliates, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, in calling for the safe release of American academic Warren Weinstein, who was abducted in Pakistan by al Qaeda.

EI has been shocked to learn that at least 30 Syrian children have been killed in a double bombing by a suicide attacker at a school in the government-controlled city of Homs.

Global action demands end to forced labour in Uzbek cotton fields. Protestors call on Government to stop using education system as tool of modern-day slavery.

The EU maternity leave directive is back in the European Parliament. The newly-elected FEMM Committee in the European Parliament had a first discussion on amending the directive in their first meeting in September 2014.