Ei-iE

Response from Education International to the Final Declaration of the Incheon World Education Forum 2015

Education International (EI) was represented by a 20-strong delegation at the World Education Forum (WEF) in Incheon, South Korea, which brought together over 1,500 stakeholders from policy, civil society and the classroom from May 19th until May 21st to deliver the new education declaration.

The EI delegation advocated for the inclusion of teachers’ voice in the new strategy that defines education policy in the coming years. Education International welcomes the new declaration, which contains many of our key demands, making it clear that our advocacy efforts and those of our affiliates have paid off.

Education International’s advocacy success lies primarily on the well-coordinated and effective engagement with governments, UNESCO, other UN agencies and participants during the WEF. We managed to influence the civil society outcome document and to get our major demands into the Incheon Declaration. The critical role of teachers in achieving the education goal and all of its targets was recognised, with the delegates committing to “ensure that teachers and educators are empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally-qualified, motivated and supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems”.

Education International’s  demand for free, quality primary and secondary education of at least 12 years (of which nine years are compulsory), early childhood education, comprising at least one year of free-pre-primary education, and equitable access to VET and tertiary education was also accepted and reflected in the outcome document. Governments also agreed to include minimum benchmarks for domestic and external education financing in the outcome document, with the Forum recommending that at least 4-6% of GDP and/or 15-20% of a country’s public expenditure should be invested in education. Still, the agreed benchmarks were a compromise and below EI’s proposal for a categorical commitment by governments to investing at least 6% of GDP or/and at least 20% of public expenditure to be invested in education.

Education International’s advocacy efforts for quality education for all are far from complete. We must continue to put pressure on governments and the UN in order to ensure that the final Education 2030 Framework for Action, the indicators and financing frameworks, to be adopted in the coming months are broad, ambitious and robust enough to guarantee quality public education for all.