Ei-iE

In a recent study entitled “Education Quality and Economic Growth”, the World Bank explores the strong link between educational quality and economic growth. However, the study’s definition of educational quality and some of the measures proposed for improving educational quality may be controversial.

Brazilian educators are celebrating a new law that establishes a national standard salary, bringing to an end decades of inequity between teachers’ salaries in different regions of the country.

"If we want education to be the main vector to achieve equal rights and combat discrimination, teachers themselves must first be set free," said EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. He was speaking in Stockholm on 1 August at a seminar on "gay rights in education" organized by the Swedish...

After nine grueling days of negotiations, trade ministers meeting in Geneva July 21-30 admitted defeat in their attempts to reach a new global trade deal, but promised to regroup at a later date.

The latest issue of the Africa Regional Bulletin is now available for download.

EI has written to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to deplore that the Charities and Societies Proclamation, a draft law, is a covert means of placing civil society organisations under government control. EI joined Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in their criticism of the proposed legislation.

The recent controversy in South Africa on making condoms available in schools highlighted what remains a sensitive issue in some societies. The fear that sex education combined with access to contraception, including condoms, encourages young people to have sex at an early age is a very real concern for many...

Recent workshops in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic reflect the growing emphasis on intra-regional partnership. In this spirit of cooperation, Gabriela Bonilla of the EI Latin American Regional Office in Costa Rica and Rosario Avila from the Honduran teacher union movement travelled to facilitate workshops in Caracas and Santo Domingo.

The Namibia National Teachers’ Union, NANTU, has produced a comprehensive HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy. The document, which was drafted in consultation with the legal assistance centre in Namibia, was launched on 21 June during the National Teachers’ Council Meeting. NANTU plans to attune their EFAIDS activities to the policy...

Mor Mbengue, Deputy Secretary General of the Senegalese Union Démocratique des Enseignantes et des Enseignants du Sénégal (UDEN) travelled to Bamako, Mali to share his knowledge of the new EFAIDS toolkits with Malian colleagues. Forty national facilitators of the Malian Syndicat National de l’Education et de la Culture (SNEC) from...

The Global Union AIDS Programme is organising a two-day Labour AIDS Forum to facilitate trade union cooperation in advance of the biennial International AIDS Conference taking place in Mexico City from 3-8 August 2008.

The first round of consultation on the drafting of the ILO Recommendation on HIV/AIDS in the World of Work will soon close.

One of the highlights of the United Nations High Level Meeting on AIDS held in New York on 10 - 11 June was the presentation of the progress report on the implementation of the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.

Odete Cossa recently joined WHO/AFRO and will liaise with the EFAIDS Programme in sub-Saharan Africa. She provides us with an insight into her work and her perspective of the EFAIDS partnership.

Together with UNESCO and UNICEF, EI's sub-regional organisation, the Council of Pacific Educators (COPE) will be holding a conference on "Improving the Status of Teachers as per ILO-UNESCO's 1966 Recommendation and promoting Children's Rights to Quality Education".

As part of the Global Union Research Network, EI strongly supports the international masters programmes on labour studies. They offer an excellent opportunity for EI member organisations to strengthen their capacities to face the challenges of globalisation.

Six months ago, the newly elected centre-left government of Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom Caballeros started reversing the privatization of the school system. The government also introduced collective bargaining in the public sector. As a result, a few weeks ago the unions were able to sign a new collective agreement that...

On 30 June, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) launched a national strike action to press the federal government to implement the promised Teachers’ Salary Structure.