Ei-iE

The Bureau of Francophone Teachers’ Union Committee (CSFEF) has expressed concern at the weak role played by the International Organisation of Francophonie (IOF) in Education for All alliances.

At the meeting organised by SNE-FDT in Casablanca, Morocco, on 27 and 28 January, a broad discussion took place on the current difficulties that the educational sector is experiencing in French-speaking countries, as in the majority of countries worldwide, as a result of the financial crisis. Education budgets have been cut in all countries, and the public education sector and its staff have been directly targeted on a number of occasions.

The Bureau also lamented the IOF’s increasing lack of visibility and analysed the outcomes of the French-language summit held in Montreux, Switzerland, in October 2010, as well as those of the recent CSFEF conference in Fribourg, Switzerland, in September 2010. It also reviewed its own activities and those of the training centre in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The Bureau went on to discuss its future activities and initiatives, in particular with regard to issues relating to rights and sustainable development.

It identified a number of actions to be implemented in order to raise the visibility of CSFEF in terms of the French-speaking context. A greater presence and contribution is planned for the French-language forum that will take place in Quebec in 2012 and at the next French-language summit that will take place in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also in 2012.

The Office closed by adopting a declaration(in French) stating that there is no future for the French language without education.

The CSFEF will organize activities for its members during the next EI World Congress, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2011.