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UNITE FOR QUALITY EDUCATION
Unite for Quality Education is a campaign of Education International (EI), the voice of teachers and other education employees across the globe. The campaign urges people to join the 30 million members that EI represents (through its 400 affiliated organizations in more than 170 countries and territories) to demand that quality education for all remains at the top of the agenda for a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous future.
RIGHT TO EDUCATION CAMPAIGN FRAMEWORK AND ELEMENTS
• Every child in the world should have access to a quality education. Education must be a critical part of any worldwide development agenda for creating just and democratic societies. The Millennium Development Goals and the Dakar Framework were vital roadmaps, but tens of millions of children remain out of school and mired in poverty.
• Teachers and unions play a vital role in quality education. Teachers and their unions are taking the lead in fighting for access and quality for all students and reclaiming education for the public benefit. They are calling for action on the three pillars of quality education: quality teaching, quality tools, and quality learning environments. Teachers are the most important educational resource for students and a critical determinant of educational quality, but their contributions are often not recognized adequately. Teachers must be treated as respected professionals and given the training and support they need. The experience of top-performing countries shows unions play a vital role in teacher professionalism and student success.
• Quality Education is a Basic Human Right! Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, states that "Everyone has the right to education,” all levels of education, including early childhood, primary, lower and upper secondary education, vocational education and training, higher and adult education. Quality education is not simply a public good. It is a basic human right. The Declaration recognises education’s transformative role and potential, when it asserts "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and…the maintenance of peace”. These words matter.
THE THREE PILLARS OF QUALITY EDUCATION
Quality education is based on three pillars:
• Quality teaching—which is ensured through the recruitment of high calibre candidates to teaching, the provision to them of high quality initial teacher education and the support throughout their career of continuous professional development. Teachers are the most important educational resource and a critical determinant of quality.
They must be treated as respected professionals. Teaching must provide an attractive career choice, and must remain sufficiently attractive, in terms of salaries and conditions of employment, to retain the best teachers in the service.
• Quality tools for teaching and learning—including appropriate curricula and inclusive teaching and learning materials and resources. These may be provided, through the application of information and communication technology, that is, by harnessing the enormous power of the internet and the capacity and accessibility of modern technology to assist and support teaching and learning.
• Quality environments for teaching and learning— supportive, comfortable, safe and secure, with the appropriate facilities to encourage student learning and to enable teachers to teach effectively. A quality environment also engages parents, students, teachers, school authorities and support staff in a community working together to achieve the goal of providing quality education for all of its students.