Ready for change

NEA Today, Oct 1995

Ioday, on the eve of the Information Age, 12-year-olds in many parts of the world are more likely to be standing in a sweatshop than sitting in a classroom.

That stark reality was the backdrop this past July for the broadest gathering of educators ever seen--the first "World Congress" of the Education International, the new global body that NEA helped create in 1993.

The Education International, or EI as it's known, includes 258 educator organizations from 141 different countries. Almost all these nations sent delegates to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, for EI's inaugural World Congress.

The theme of the Congress--"Educators United, Ready for Change"--echoed throughout four days of discussion and debate.

What's uniting educators, EI President Mary Hatwood Futrell (pictured above) told delegates in her opening keynote address, is the multi-faceted economic, political, and social revolution that's transforming how the world works. (Photo omitted) In today's new "internationalized" global environment, boundaries between nations count for less and less.

What counts for more and more, explained EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen of the Netherlands, are huge, multinational corporations that routinely move plants and jobs from country to country, searching for the lowest tax rates and the cheapest labor. These companies leaue behind devastated communities unable to afford basic public services--most notably education--for their people.

"Resources have been so seuerely cut," added EI President Futrell, a former NEA president, "that in some countries the only ones in schools who have books are teachers."

Internally, within nations, pressures like these are pitting ethnic groups against one another in battles over scarce resources--and fostering intolerance that can often turn violent.

"The world is far more complex, interdependent, and intercultural than at any time in the history of humankind," said Futrell. "To survive, we must respect one another."

Before they left Zimbabwe, delegates at the World Congress committed the EI to action in three "priority" areas. They voted approval of resolutions that:

* Protect human and trade union rights around the world.

* Reject continuing moves to privatize education.

* Promote reforms that help make schools effective tools for achieving social and economic progress.

To translate these resolutions into real gains for children, the Education International will coordinate a variety of campaigns and projects over the next three years.

EI will work with member organizations, for instance, to prevent education discrimination against girls--around the world, 76 million fewer girls than boys attend school--and stop the growing exploitation of child labor.

And to help involve member educator groups--and individual educators--in advancing the agenda adopted in Zimbabwe, the EI will soon unveil a new presence on the Information Superhighway that will be accessible from computer keyboards in evey corner of the world. Watch NEA Today for more details.

NEA members can plug into the EI right now. The full text of major addresses at the first EI World Congress are available on NEA Online. Keyword: NEA Making News and click the Speech Library.