Ei-iE

For 15 years now, teachers around the world have been united in solidarity under Education International’s flag. On 26 January 1993, approximately 1,000 delegates from the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession(WCOTP) and the International Federation of Free Teachers Unions(IFFTU) gathered in Stockholm, Sweden, to merge these two rival teacher union federations.

Starting with about 18 million members, EI currently has approximately 30 million members in 394 affiliates in 171 countries and territories.

One of the largest democratic organisations in the world, EI is the voice of the education sector globally. As Albert Shanker, EI’s founding President, proudly underlined during the Congress in Sweden:

“The only means that we have to get heard, to build our fate as teachers is to become part of an organisation and to work together with our colleagues. This is true on the local and national scale, as well as on the international one. Thus the importance of [...] being together, of our being one.”

Today Education International is renowned as the leader on issues such as Education For All, the rights of women and girls, union rights of educators and support personnel, the fight against child labour, the prevention of HIV/AIDS and the struggle for human rights and democracy.

“Every single educator at EI is an advocate committed to making education the number one political, economic, and social priority in every community in every nation,” said Mary Hatwood Futrell, EI’s other founding president. “We are the public stewards who can and should persuade communities to focus their resources on children and, thus, invest in becoming responsible, caring citizens.”

During EI’s 5th World Congress in Berlin last July, EI’s General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen warned about current challenges and pointed to future directions for the organisation.

“Today the world is facing a serious teacher shortage, with 18 million more educators needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals. We are telling governments that they must invest in education, and make the teaching profession more attractive, or risk the education of future generations,” van Leeuwen emphasized.

“EI’s top priorities in the next period are: continuing to build dialogue between cultures; maintaining our work for gender equity, while resisting ongoing and resurgent discrimination in a number of countries; further strengthening our solidarity programs, strengthen our member organisations, support those combating repression and help those confronted by disasters; building on our work on PISA and other testing regimes, and developing our own indicators of quality in education; continuing to work within our coalitions in the Global Campaign for Education, our work on HIV and AIDS, and on child labour, and finally setting up the new EI Research institute; all of which has great potential to help us achieve our goals – in both industrialised and developing countries alike.”

Van Leeuwen and EI leaders around the world are determined to continue building solidarity and partnerships in the global struggle for public quality education for all!