Johannesburg: EI Africa Regional Committee meets to address education and union challenges

The EI Africa Regional Committee met from 20-22 March at Holiday Inn, Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa.  The main purpose of the meeting was to prepare for the 10th EI Africa Regional Conference, as well as make decisions to address current challenges confronting education, educators and students. 
 
In his opening remarks, Chairperson of the EI Africa Regional Committee, Christian Addai-Poku, recalled the commitments made by African governments through SDG4 and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa to ensure quality education for all and revitalize the teaching profession. 
 
Addai-Poku noted with concern that more “more than halfway towards the 2030 deadline for achieving the global education goal, and with only two years remaining before the CESA deadline of 2025, many children, youth, and adults in Africa remain excluded from education”. 
 
While conveying greetings from the EI Executive Board and EI President, the EI General Secretary, David Edwards, empathized with the thousands of people affected by Cyclone Freddy which hit Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe killing more than 400 people and affecting millions more. . He informed the Regional Committee that EI has responded by supporting the member organizations in Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar to provide humanitarian assistance to the affected teachers and their families. 
 
He also informed the Regional Committee that EI was able in the recent past  to secure the release of union leaders of the Central African Republic (CAR) who were arrested after a strike for decent salaries and working conditions. EI has also condemned attacks on trade unions and their leaders, particularly in Eswatini.  
 
He reminded the committee members that beyond moral and direct support, the ability to come together to lead ultimately made the difference; standing together for quality education for all and improving the welfare and status of the teachers and other education workers. 
 
“There is only one way to make inclusive quality education a universal human right and priority; there is only one way to get the public’s resources for the public good; there is only one way forward to create a sustainable world. That one way is to mobilize”, emphasized Edwards. 
The General Secretary added that EI has taken a major step towards this by launching the campaign “Go Public! Fund Education”.The global campaign is to mobilize more funding for public education. It is driven by education unions organizing as the voice of the teaching profession. 
 
Edwards indicated that the campaign is necessary  because of the austerity push, education budget cuts, growing privatization, deteriorating working conditions for education workers, a critical global teacher shortage, and the opportunity presented by the Transforming Education Summit and the High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession.
 
The Committee was given insight into the process of assessing progress towards the achievement of SDG4 and CESA objectives in Africa by Manos Antoninis, Director, of Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report), and Margarita Focas Licht, Manager, Global Partnership for Education(GPE) who focused on investing in education and teachers in Africa.
Manos said that the GEM Report was meant to inform education actions and has the mandate to monitor progress on education in the 2030 Agenda and implement strategies to achieve SDG4 to hold all partners to account for their commitments.  He analysed the benchmarks used to monitor teacher training, out-of-school children, and school completion rates, among others. He shared recommendations made in the past and proposed potential areas of future collaboration with Education International.
 
Margarita Focas informed the Regional Committee that GPE is the world’s only partnership and fund entirely dedicated to education in lower-income countries. As a fund, it leverages global and national resources to transform education and reach the most vulnerable children. As a partnership, GPE brings partners together around inclusive policy dialogue. GPE supports strong education systems.
 
GPE, she said, has made specific support to teachers: 91% of GPE’s implementation grants supported investment in quality teachers and teaching (totaling over $528 million) in the areas of in-service and  pre-service training, teacher coaching, and mentoring, teacher management, social dialogue related to teachers, and teaching tools such as teachers’ guides and other pedagogical resources. 
 
 Focas further gave examples of the countries GPE has given support to teachers in Africa.

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