Ei-iE

G8 Finance Ministers met in Italy on Saturday 13 June. Their statement was mildly optimistic about recovery, but was at odds with the reality, as reported by trade union leaders the day before in Geneva.

Global economic recovery will require the re-affirmation of our fundamental values -- the right of workers to organize, to be represented by independent trade unions, to build a decent future for themselves and their families. This message was central to the address given by EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen...

Talk of a “jobless recovery” doesn’t make sense. When labour leaders met with World Economic Forum staff last week, there was some straight talking about this notion and the reality confronting millions around the world. For more details see:http://fundingeducation.blogspot.com .

People around the world are looking for signs that the worst of the financial crisis is over, and that recovery may be on the way. US leaders said recently they could see “a glimmer of hope.” The financial media are asking whether the dramatic decline in markets has “bottomed-out.” In...

“Invest in people!” This is the message that EI will put to governments and key international agencies in coming months as the world searches for a path to recovery from the global economic crisis.

Over the past six months, people around the world have watched in growing alarm as it became evident we now are facing the worst crisis in the real economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unfortunately, working people, who had no hand in creating the crisis, are bearing the...

Planet Earth faces the real danger of abrupt climate change in the next 10 to 30 years, the consequences of which would be so catastrophic that the international community needs to take concerted and radical action now.

The gate to the school yard is covered with ugly graffiti, but the murals in the courtyard depict lovely flowers, colourful tropical scenes, and a map of the island of Martinique, an overseas department of France in the eastern Caribbean. We are at the secondary school of Le Vauclin, where...

Sri Lanka has for decades been torn apart by the conflict between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers. Members of a Tamil education union give personal accounts of life and work in the most dangerous areas of the country. To protect the identity of the teachers who had...

The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardized test undertaken by random samples of 15-year-old students in 57 countries around the world. It is the best known international comparative study undertaken regularly in education today, and its results have a significant impact on education policy in...

Did you know that the concept of individuals being left-brained or right-brained is an example of neuroscientific research data being interpreted incorrectly (Willis, 2008)? Or that the practice of identifying learners as auditory, visual or kinesthetic has never been supported by brain research (Ansari, 2008)? These commonly held beliefs have...

Mae Sot, THAILAND — He has the quiet, professional demeanour of a man who prefers the educational sanctuary of the classroom to the dangers of revolutionary politics. Yet Burmese teacher Htay Hlaing spent nine-years incarcerated in a notorious torture prison in his military-ruled homeland for the so-called “crime” of helping...

Haiti’s struggling education system suffered another severe blow as tropical storms and hurricanes hit the island four times in August and September, bringing floods that killed more than 800 people and inflicting almost $1 billion in damage.

We [teachers] can begin. I hope we are clever enough to understand that somebody has to take the first step for nothing. And the second step for nothing. And maybe after 10 steps I can expect something from gypsy kids, and gypsy families. Because I like to hope that we...

The recent book, "Main basse sur l’éducation publique", by teacher Eddy Khali and journalist Muriel Fitoussi, sends a disturbing message about the many threats endangering quality, free public education in France.

“When I first heard the terrible news from Kauhajoki I was shocked: Not again!” said Erkki Kangasniemi, President of the Trade Union of Education in Finland (OAJ).