Education throughout the world is in crisis. In many countries the current economic crisis is having a devastating effect on education. Public funding for education is being cut severely, resulting in cutbacks in staffing, in salaries, in pensions and in support services.
External development funding for education services in poorer countries is also being reduced dramatically. It is now highly unlikely that the Millennium Development Goal for Education will be achieved by 2015. Privatisation of education services and de-professionalization of teaching are being promoted by those who would undermine public education and make it subservient to the needs of the market.
In these circumstances EI gives priority in our advocacy work to promoting quality public education and persuading the inter-government organisations and national governments that they should prioritise spending on education services as a solution to the crisis. In this context we also provide support to our member organisations at national level in their campaigns to offset the worst effects of the cutbacks in public expenditure on their members and on the public education systems.
We have taken every opportunity to present our case for maintaining and, indeed, increasing spending on education to the G20, OECD, UNESCO, World Bank and IMF, and we will continue to do so at every opportunity. We are working with ITUC and our GUF partners to present our arguments as effectively, and as frequently, as possible.
In order to provide a specific platform for our advocacy work and a tool to communicate relevant information and supportive material and resources we are pleased to announce that we have developed a dedicated website ( www.educationincrisis.net). The news and information on the site will be updated regularly. It also has several interactive features to enable you to communicate with us and provide information for posting on the site. The site is available currently in English only but with links to other language versions of materials where they are available. Parallel sites will be developed in other languages in due course. Please contact educationcrisis@ei-ie.org if you have any queries or comments.