Ei-iE

Diverse congress business, including policy papers, resolutions and awardees, are high on the agenda of the 44th Education International Executive Board meeting, with just four months to go before the organisation’s key political event.

Brazil’s national education union has taken a major step towards boosting the status of indigenous education within the national system after hosting its First National Indigenous Educators’ Meeting in Sao Paulo this month.

With the fate of education currently being negotiated in global free-trade talks, Martin Rømer, Director of the European Trade Union Committee for Education, spoke with RadioLabour about the possible consequences.

Teacher unionists aren’t happy with the government’s decision to recruit more than 20,000 unqualified teachers to fill empty posts, which account for nearly a fifth of the country’s teaching force in primary and secondary schools.

The defence of quality public education and teachers’ rights are at the centre of discussions between Education International and the Mexican teachers’ union SNTE, the largest in Latin America, in view of SNTE’s application for membership with EI.

The UK government has published the findings of its asbestos policy in schools review after bowing to education unions’ sustained pressure to go public, but critics say if still falls short.

Education International has demanded that Myanmar’s public authorities stop the violent crackdown on student protests calling for changes to the National Education Law, and include them along educators’ representatives in the parliamentary discussions.

Korean teacher unions are actively defending their members’ status in moves to ensure that teachers’ pensions are protected benefit and that legal assistance is on-hand to protect their rights.

Education International has co-sponsored a panel discussion focusing on the key priorities for gender equality, women’s human rights and empowerment in the new post-2015 sustainable development framework to be agreed by United Nations’ member states this fall.

This week in Washington D.C. the classroom enters the cinema to present education in ways not commonly seen, helping to provoke new ideas, debate, and the chance to reveal how film can unlock potential.

In its latest reports, UNESCO calls for the need to adequately finance education to ensure quality education for all, and sounds the alarm on school-related gender-based violence.

As the Belgian Government forges ahead with unpopular austerity measures aimed at tackling the country’s debt and sagging economy, opponents pointed to overcrowded schools as the glaring example of unkept promises, and called for action.

Global Union delegations at the UN are urging member states to make a stronger commitment to women’s economic rights on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and in the new sustainable development goals.

Staff and children continue to be put at risk, say education unions in the United Kingdom, who are urging their government to immediately publish its own review of asbestos management in schools.

With the Global Education and Skills Forum underway in Dubai, EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen shares his thoughts on how to balance quality teaching and quality education with learning technology.

Education International’s delegation to the 59th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women marched alongside thousands of activists through New York Sunday for gender equality and the rights of women and girls.

The Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft, together with other public sector unions, is organising strikes across Germany in pursuit of a salary increase and a collective agreement for the 200,000 teachers employed in public schools.

In February, Education International organized national conversations on the issues affecting teacher effectiveness in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal, part of a programme aimed at boosting teacher unions’ promotion of quality education.