Norway: Education stakeholders in Oslo to set global financial priorities
Education International joins global leaders in Oslo to bridge the global Education for All vision and commitments adopted at the World Education Forum with the necessary financing, priorities and political will.
The Oslo Summit on Education for Development has brought the world’s education leaders to Norway, including Education International (EI), to agree on the necessary financing needed to realise the future global education goals, a consensus that must emerge from Addis Summit on Sustainable Financing next week.
“Our global EFA teacher report clearly shows that the missed opportunities of the past to realize the right to education can be remedied with immediate action and long-term vision to ensure every learner has a highly qualified, professionally trained and well supported teacher,” said EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. “We have put forward a vision of the fundamental pillars for ensuring the right to quality education. We have proactively worked with our partners to ensure that classroom expertise and wisdom inform policy planning and implementation.”
Find out what happened at the World Education Forum (WEF) here
The question looming large is: will donor countries commit to the necessary investment to ensure the right of all to a free, equitable, quality education or will they turn their back to the 59 million children out of school?
See the live webcast here
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solbergand the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon opened the Summit with calls for action in the critical areas of 1) financing; 2) girls; 3) education in emergencies; and 4) quality teaching and learning. They were joined by Malala, UN Special Envoy Gordon Brown, ILO Director General Guy Ryder, and Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Board Chair Julia Gillard among others to shine a light on the dwindling resources, the growing needs and the clear choice facing the planet ahead of the adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
In the run up to Oslo, EI co-hosted one of the pre-events with UNESCO, the Government of Norway and the European Commission at Norway House in Brussels on ‘ Investing in teachers is investing in learning: A prerequisite for the transformative power of education.’ The Oslo Summit calls for the third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa to scale up international cooperation as described in the draft outcome document. Financing education must be a pivotal element of financing sustainable development.
During one of the Summits four main panels, ‘ Quality and Learning,’ van Leeuwen will lay-out EI’s commitment to hold governments to account who privatise and outsource their responsibilities, to advance on the broad and bold agenda for education quality as included in the three pillars of the Unite for Quality Education Campaign and to close the global teacher gap. He will also join Un Special Envoy Gordon Brown in calling for a special humanitarian fund for education in emergencies such as Pakistan and Syria.
Education International and its national affiliate Utdanningsforbundet are tweeting throughout the day and ask members and partners to join in turning up the heat as we near the finish line for post 2015. Let world leaders know you support free, inclusive quality education for all and demand urgent action.
