Wishing everyone a prosperous new year, Education International will hit the ground running to start 2018, and, as ever, the global federation of education trade unions will work hard defending the interests of all workers in the education sector, and promoting access to quality public education for all.
Education International (EI) will begin 2018 proudly celebrating its 25th anniversary on 26 January. This is an impressive milestone for education and educators worldwide, whether involved in early childhood education, primary, secondary, university sectors, or as education support personnel or, indeed, anyone else who works in the field of education worldwide!
A mere two weeks later, from 5-7 February, EI will hold its 3rd World Women’s Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, under the theme “Finding a way ‘through the labyrinth’: women, unions, education and leadership”.
From regional to international
Then, it will be time to focus on teacher unions and education challenges in the North American and the Caribbean region, with the EI Regional Conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad, from 24-26 February. This will be hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association in collaboration with the Caribbean Union of Teachers.
From 22-23 March, the annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession, the eighth such gathering, will be held in Lisbon, Portugal. The event will be hosted by the Portuguese Government and jointly organised by EI and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with the overarching theme as “New Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Teaching Profession in Public Education”. The Portuguese government has scheduled pre- and post-summit activities for international participants to learn about the Portuguese education system, and, on 21 March, EI and Portuguese affiliates, the Federação Nacional da Educação(FNE) and the Federação Nacional dos Professores(FENPROF), will organise activities such as an EI Pre-Summit briefing for EI affiliates attending the Summit.
Holistic approach
From 24-26 April, the next School Leadership Conference, “United for quality leadership in schools”, will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa. This will be followed by EI’s 14th Research Network meeting in Brussels, Belgium, from 25-26 April; this allows educator unionists to exchange and develop research activities and strategies to inform their global and national work.
May (15-16) will see the inaugural conference on Education and Support Personnel (ESP) entitled “Organising ESP to contribute to quality education: It takes the entire education workforce to educate the whole child”, in Brussels, Belgium.
Education International is also pleased to announce that its 11th Further and Higher Education and Research Conference will take place in Taipei, Taiwan, from 12-14 November. This conference will build on the prior experiences and outcomes of past Conferences and facilitate discussion on topical issues facing the sector.
Education International’s headline activities during 2018 will conclude with a conference of affiliates in OECD Member States to take place in Mexico on 12-13 December.