EI tightens relations with UNESCO to achieve Education for All
An EI delegation was present at the 36th UNESCO General Conference, held from 25 October to 10 November, at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France.
The General Conference adopted a new Programme and Budget and agreed on four thematic priorities for the 2012-2013 biennium: sector-wide policy and planning, literacy, teachers and skills development. The General Conference also approved the revised International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) and elected a new UNESCO Executive Board.
The revised ISCED places more emphasis on Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Early Childhood Education (ECE), for example, by extending the definition of ISCED 0 from age 3 years-primary school age to age 0 years-primary school age.
EI welcomes UNESCO’s decision to give high priority to teachers, ECE, VET and other aspects of education in the next biennium.
Addressing the General Conference, EI Deputy General Secretary, David Edwards, urged “UNESCO member states to involve teacher organisations in all aspects of education and teacher policy development, implementation and evaluation.”
Edwards drew the delegates’ attention to the new comprehensive EI Policy Paper on Education, a consultative document which lays out EI’s positions on many of the issues being discussed in education around the world today, which was adopted at EI’s 6th World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.
EI Deputy General Secretary further noted that “our chances of achieving Education for All (EFA) by 2015 look highly unlikely, primarily because the economic and financial crisis made it increasingly difficult to get donor countries to hold up their end of the promise when so many developing countries have held up theirs.”
He emphasised that as the representative of the teaching profession within the newly launched Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and in other capacities, EI was ready to work with UNESCO towards creating a new architecture for EFA coordination and education towards and beyond 2015, grounded on the recognition that equity and quality are inextricably linked.
Furthermore, Edwards explained that EI is committed to engage with and through its affiliates at grassroots-level to inform planning and implementation processes with educators’ professional knowledge and ethics, as well as teacher union values and principles of equality, respect and social justice, to achieve Education For All by 2015.
