The 44th Education International’s Executive Board meeting has appointed Patrick Roach from the UK and Ryosuke Kato from Japan to help run the organisation’s work as Vice-Presidents for Europe and Asia-Pacific respectively, until the 7th World Congress in July.
Patrick Roach, the Deputy General Secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) in the UK, was appointed Education International (EI) Vice-President for Europe. He takes over the seat left vacant by Eva-Lis Sirén, the former President of the Swedish union Lärarförbundet, who has recently resigned from the Board.
Assist leadership
Roach’s first reaction was to pay tribute to his predecessor, stressing that he felt honoured to have been considered to “step in Eva-Lis’s shoes, which are big shoes to fill indeed”, “an excellent Vice-President of EI”.
His job is to continue to assist the Executive Board to lead EI on behalf of all affiliates and to continue to assist the General Secretary, officers, and the Board to ensure EI has the best Congress ever in Ottawa, Canada, in July, he went on to say.
Ryosuke Kato, the President of the Japan Teachers’ Union (JTU), succeeds S. Eswaran, the Secretary General of the All India Primary Teachers Federation, as EI Vice-President for Asia-Pacific. S. Eswaran died in October 2014.
Link with affiliates
“I hope to be a solid and trustful link between the EI headquarters and the EI Asia-Pacific affiliates in terms of views, thoughts, and work they do,” Kato said after his election.
He added that one of the JTU’s main activities is to build a truly inclusive education system, ensuring that nobody is left out of school. This conforms with the work that EI does for all children around the world, he said.