Ei-iE

The school year will open in Spain with a heated debate about new educational reforms, imposed by government decree. Trade unions argue that the reform measures will promote early student segregation, bring private enterprise methods into public schools, and militate against “better quality in education”.

EI’s national affiliates, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) have reacted to the New York City Education Department’s declaration that nearly half of New York City teachers reaching the end of their probations were denied tenure this year.

One of EI’s national affiliates, the Workers Councils’ Teacher Branch, KPSZ-KPT, has recently expressed their desire to initiate democratic negotiations with policy-makers on reforms to take effect in the Hungarian education system in 2013.

Canadian educator unionists have condemned the Ontarian liberal government’s ultimatum for local teachers’ unions and school boards that has both sides of the conflict currently in a stalemate. Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten said that if the teachers' unions and school boards do not sign the proposed new deals by...

EI’s national affiliate, the Education and Science Employees’ Union of Russia (ESEUR), has called for a renegotiation of a newly proposed law that will close thousands of Russia’s educational institutions in 2013. President Putin has backed the law, along with several others that will aim to privatise Russia’s education system,...

EI national affiliates in the UK reacted angrily to Prime Minister David Cameron’s suggestion that teachers were not “playing their part” in school sports. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) were reacting to Cameron’s call for “a big cultural...

The Namibia National Teachers’ Union (NANTU), EI’s national affiliate, has applauded the Ministry of Education’s decision to provide free and compulsory education at primary level.

EI welcomes France’s new budget law, adopted by both parliamentary houses and including a 0.2 per cent tax on the purchase and sale of stocks in French companies with more than €1 billion in market capitalisation. This tax, implemented since 1 August, is double the 0.1 per cent tax proposed...

Progress in reducing the number of children out of school has stalled across the globe. 61 million children were out of primary school in 2010, a similar number to the previous year.

The All India Primary Teachers' Federation (AIPTF), one of EI’s national affiliates, has severely criticised the government’s Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) scheme in education. The AIPTF claims PPPs will commercialise education and undermine efforts to achieve Education For All goals. It has also condemned the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) and...

The Algemene Onderwijsbond(AOb), one of EI’s national affiliates, has condemned the drastic cut in full-time positions in Dutch schools. The 2011-2012 school year witnessed a reduction of 9,000 full-time positions in Dutch schools as compared to the previous school year. This happened despite the decrease in education jobs being considerably...

The Australian Education Union (AEU) has launched a campaign, I give a Gonski, to encourage the Government to legislate for a new funding model based on the findings of the Gonski Review of Federal Schools funding.

EI condemns the latest message delivered by Idaho Schools Superintendent Tom Luna, alleging that the Idaho Education Association was lying about “Students Come First”.

The EI European region, the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), has joined the large Regulate Global Finance Now! campaign. This campaign comprises five sub-campaigns: “A financial transaction tax, now!”, “Credit Rating Agencies”, “Stop food speculation! Now!”, “Managing future crises”, and “Bonus watch!”

The Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) has decided to contravene a court decision and instead go on an open-ended strike over demands for a 4.5 per cent salary increase. The SNAT, an EI affiliate, is extending a two-day action held on 13-14 June, in which over 6,000 teachers participated.

Two big rallies were organised during the Earth Summit, Rio+20, gathering of world political leaders: the “World March of Women” against the “false green economy”, and the March of the “Peoples' Summit” on 20 June, convened by the CUT, the main Brazilian trade union centre in Brazil. EI was represented...

EI European Region, the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), has joined a signature campaign promoting a financial transaction tax (FTT) at EU level. This campaign aims at exerting pressure on EU member countries’ finance ministers who will hold a policy debate on the EU Commission proposal on 22...

EI supports the shift in language in the G20 Los Cabos Declaration from austerity to jobs, which is going in the right direction. But it warns that, unless there is coordinated action from G20 leaders, words will not be translated into the investment necessary to get people back to work.