Global Action Week for Education: make the right to free quality public education a reality
On the occasion of the Global Education Week for Education (24 April-1st May), educators and their unions around the world have joined hands with the Global Campaign for Education to call upon governments to make the right to inclusive, equitable, quality, free public education a reality.
Running under the slogan “My Education, My right(s)”, this year’s campaign seeks to (re)claim the right to education. The Global Education Week for Education (GAWE) 2019 reaffirms the need for countries to come up with concrete strategies and actions to achieve SDG4 on quality education, as well as all the other SDGs and education-related targets.
In 2015, UN and UNESCO member states committed to provide free and equitable primary and secondary education and to ensure that all children have access to quality early childhood education and affordable quality technical, vocational and higher education. The governments also committed to increase the number of qualified teachers and to ensure that educators are empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally qualified, motivated and supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems.
These commitments are yet to be fulfilled less than 12 years before the 2030 deadline for their achievement. On current trends, it is clear that the global education goal will not be achieved by 2030.
“We urge governments and the UN to take immediate measures to achieve the sustainable development goal (SDG) 4, and indeed all the SDGs,” said EI General Secretary, David Edwards. This will require unequivocal commitment to the right to education, demonstrated through increased investment in education, teachers and all education workers,” he stressed.
