When Education International embarks on its global Unite for Quality Education Campaign culmination tour this week, education leaders, teachers and students from around the world will push quality education to the top of the agenda.
Beginning Saturday, 13 September in Sydney, Australia, Education International (EI) will set-off on a round-the-world voyage to celebrate the conclusion of the year-long campaign, and bring awareness to the issues that we must continue to tackle as the global development agenda prepares to move beyond 2015.
The President of EI, Susan Hopgood, will kick-off the culmination tour in Sydney, while EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen begins his journey one week later, Saturday, 20 September in Pretoria, South Africa.
In all, EI’s leaders will attend Unite events in six cities, including Sydney; New Delhi, India; Pretoria; Brussels, Belgium; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and finally New York, USA. Additional events are also being planned in other cities around the world.
When the Unite for Quality Education Campaign, built upon the three pillars of quality teachers, quality tools, and quality environments, was launched from New York and Paris last September, our vision was clear: to raise awareness among governments, non-governmental and international organisations, financial institutions, community leaders and the general public:
- Of the critical role quality education plays in the development of the individual and society;
- Of the necessity to provide access to a quality education for every student;
- Of the fact that education must be the bedrock of any post -2015 development agenda;
- Of the work of EI and its affiliates and members on behalf of quality education;
- And of the essential nature of the voice of teachers and their representatives in the development of national and international education policy.
By the time the campaign arrives in New York for the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September, we will have brought with us not only these messages of the campaign and of EI, but also the messages of millions of teachers worldwide. We will even be bringing classroom teachers from various countries and backgrounds to New York to let UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon know the reality of education on the ground, and of its importance on the future global agenda.
Over the next two weeks, be on the lookout for updates from each event as it happens, along with blog posts written by EI’s communications’ team at each stop of the campaign culmination tour. Stories and blog posts will be published on both EI’s main web page and the Unite for Quality Education blog.
Event dates:
- Sept. 13th – Sydney, Australia
- Sept. 18th & 19th – New Delhi, India
- Sept. 20th – Pretoria, South Africa
- Sept. 22nd – Brussels, Belgium
- Sept. 23rd – Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Sept. 24th & 25th – New York, USA
Photo: Wikipedia Commons