Ei-iE

The global education community is now in the final phase of setting the Global Sustainable Development Goals and Education for All agendas – Education 2030. Civil society has been instrumental in securing an ambitious, rights-based framework for education post-2015.

As 27 August marks the 500th day since 273 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped, Education International and concerned citizens the world over continue to put pressure on the Nigerian Government.

The National Coalition for Education has welcomed the recent judgement of the Allahabad High Court in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh “historic” for urging governmental officials to send their children to governmental school.

Education unions have commented on the General Certificate of Secondary Education’s results, demonstrating the value of the UK public education system, and urged the Government to take further action to sustain the positive results.

With the school year fast approaching Ontario’s public high school teachers have agreed to terms on a new contract with the provincial government, avoiding labour action which included a ban on extracurricular activities.

A seminar on women's rights in Bafoussam, Cameroon, organised by the Swedish union Lärarförbundet and Cameroon’s education unions affiliated with Education International, was undertaken to help participants better understand and tackle the issues.

Education International joins the Global Partnership for Education and UNICEF in expressing utmost dismay at the killing of teachers and children in an airstrike in war-torn Yemen.

UNSA Education, one of EI’s affiliates in France, has – for the third year in a row – published a study examining the current preoccupations of members of the education workforce in the country.

Less than six weeks are left until the Global Goals for Sustainable Development are launched at the United Nations. To celebrate this, the World’s Largest Lesson will take place in schools around the world. To prepare, a toolkit has been launched.

The educaction community in the United States highlights a worrying trend: shrinking budgets or ending grant money push Education Support Personnel (ESP) into unemployment, reducing overall education employee capacity.

The Australian Education Union has deplored the results of the latest National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy showing huge gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students and called for targeting funding allocated to schools.

“Our collective efforts show considerable progress on advocacy, capacity building, research, communications, and solidarity…as there is not yet a ‘standardised test’for international organisations, you will have to grade us based on common sense.”

Unions respond to data released by the Department for Education that shows the alarming rise of assaults on teachers by pupils, a problem that underlines the need to address student violence within education institutions.

The teacher’s union Verband Bildung und Erziehung has urged public authorities in the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia to bring more attention and financing to inclusive and refugees’ education.

The Zimbabwe Teachers' Association has firmly condemned plans by the national government to greatly reduce the wage bill in the public sector, including education.

Education International is stronger than ever, but so are the challenges – that’s the perspective EI President Hopgood gave some 2,000 delegates in her keynote address to the 7th World Congress in Ottawa.

Barring unforeseen changes, the United Nations post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals will include education as a standalone goal alongside such critical matters as poverty, hunger and health.

Government cost-cutting in Zimbabwe aimed at teachers and other public sector workers led to the elimination of salaries for at least 3,000 teachers in July according to news reports.