“The drama of 2011 will be cuts in state and municipal budgets in the United States”

This is what George Soros said in Davos this week in an interview I saw on CNBC. He went on to say that the issue was “very political”. Soros explained that the republicans wanted to weaken the unions, who were the main supporters of the Democratic Party. Cutting state and municipal budgets will cut heavily into public service staffing and therefore union membership.

Soros is an insightful thinker. Coming straight after a Global Unions’ conference on organizing in Washington last week, it was striking to hear the billionaire “retired” hedge fund manager and philanthropist come out with the same analysis as trade union leaders. In Washington, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow pointed out that union membership in the private sector in the US was down to 7 percent while public sector membership was still high. “So you would expect the public sector unions to be the target of the anti-union forces”, she said. NEA President Dennis van Roekel and AFT President Randi Weingarten highlighted this trend with riveting examples of attacks on teachers and their unions in the US. Paul Moist, President of the large Canadian Public Sector Union, CUPE, had a similar story to tell.

I had the task of presenting the joint union plan to combat this assault, arising out of the successful conference “Quality Public Services: Action Now!” held in Geneva last October. That plan focuses on the local level, where ordinary families need good public services, and will feel the brunt of the cuts.

The plan is very clear that this must be a campaign directed to all working people – not only those in the public sector. It will focus on the reality of the cuts in essential services. It will aim to show that “Quality Public Services” is not an abstraction but concrete and real. It will get underway in cities and regions around the world, for the cutting of public services at local level is common to many countries. It will really link the global with the local.

The plan was approved at the Council of Global Unions meeting at the OECD in Paris this week. For more details, go to www.qpsactionnow.org.

From Paris, several of our union leaders headed for Davos, to try to get key union messages heard there. I checked the CNBC website for the Soros interview. I found the quote at the top of this item. He made the point that in the US, states are required to balance their budgets, and since tax revenue has dropped and additional Federal funds are unlikely, they will have to cut spending. This is precisely the point we made after the crisis first hit two years ago, and reiterated when the trend of fiscal consolidation gathered momentum in 2010, as we saw at the G8 and G20 summits of Toronto and Seoul. He also said that the fiscal crisis now affecting many US states was somewhat like the one that hit countries like Greece and Ireland in the Eurozone – an interesting point.

But I couldn’t find on the website what I heard Soros say about the politics and the union-busting agenda. I wonder why. Did I just dream it? Or was that part not included because it did not fit the narrative coming out of business circles these days?

Education: everyone’s interest; nobody’s priority?

Two recent events highlighted the dilemma we face as we strive to get priority for education in a time of fiscal constraint.

The first was the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Summit of Global Agenda Councils last month in Dubai.

The second was a trade union consultation last week with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, as he takes up the chair of the G20 (as well as the G8) for 2011.

In Dubai, the Global Agenda Council on Education did some soul-searching on the fact that education did not get a high score on a priority rating exercise, nor it seemed in planning for the annual meeting in Davos. Yet there was a lot of inter-action with other Councils, and what came out was that everyone was interested in education, and everyone had an opinion to express.

President Sarkozy broke new ground by consulting with trade unions and others shortly after taking up the G20 chair, following the Seoul Summit. He stated that he wished to identify priorities for the G20 in an inter-dependant global economy, and then to address those priorities systematically through meetings of ministers and officials leading up to the next summit to be hosted by France in November 2011. He will also consult with other G20 leaders early in the process, starting with a meeting with US President Obama in early January.

When I asked if that included education ministers, he replied “why not? Perhaps they could be included in the meeting of labour and employment ministers” he added, turning to his Labour Minister, who looked less than enthusiastic. But then Mr. Sarkozy continued that he did not want to “banalize” the G20 “with meetings of G20 sports ministers, for example”. As soon as I got the chance, I challenged this view, stating that “far from being banal”, education was at the core of major questions facing G20 countries. Then we got to an issue that did seem to capture attention – youth unemployment.

In Dubai, the focus was on identifying systemic risks facing the global community – risks like new financial crises, climate change, food supply, shortage of water, epidemics, terrorism, new conflicts, even a renewed risk of nuclear weapons being used. Part of the process was to have exchanges between Global Agenda Councils aimed at pinning down these systemic risks. When Sharan Burrow and John Evans from the Council on Employment and Social Protection joined the Education Council for such an exchange, the risk that came out was that posed by the huge percentage of unemployed young people in many countries – young people who are neither in school, nor in vocational training, nor in the world of work. Very often they are engaged in illegal activities – drugs and other forms of trafficking, gang activities, even militias of different kinds, or yes, even terrorism. The risks for social cohesion are great. Youth unemployment is a veritable time bomb ticking away in all our societies. And the risk is not limited to any one country. It cuts across national borders, just like the risks of financial speculation or environmental risks, they are transnational.

Sharan and John were key players in setting up the meeting with President Sarkozy a few weeks later. Sharan referred to the huge risk of youth unemployment in her opening remarks. But, when we made the link with education towards the end of the meeting I felt – at last - that we were getting attention.

Everyone is interested in education. Like many other political leaders, Nicolas Sarkozy has made speeches, written letters, stressing the importance of education for future generations. But there have been too many “motherhood and apple-pie” speeches, and not enough real action.

Education is everyone’s interest, but nobody’s priority –until leaders recognize that there is also urgency to defuse the time bomb of out of school, out of work youth.

That is why EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen has written to President Sarkozy stating there is urgency, as well as a need for long-term work on education. That is a message we have to carry to every political leader for them to express more than interest, but to make education one of their highest political priorities.

Is it time to rethink our strategy?

The global banking crisis hit us more than two years ago – in August 2008. Meeting just a month after the fall of Lehman Brothers, the EI Executive Board foresaw the risks for education funding and called for a campaign to focus on education as a key investment in sustainable recovery. EI Officers and staff worked on a campaign strategy that was endorsed by the Board in March 2009 and pursued by EI and many member organizations through the remainder of 2009 and into 2010.

This strategy combined global advocacy with national and local action. We worked with our coalitions of Global Unions and the Global Campaign for Education to get our key messages to the G8 and to the G20 as well as the UN, the OECD, the World Bank, ILO and UNESCO. Our messages on education as an investment not a cost, and on maintaining funding commitments for EFA, were carried forward nationally during the Global Action Weeks of 2009 and 2010.

By the time the EI Board met in December 2009, we knew that the big risk for education was the push by many governments towards so-called “exit strategies”, which would translate into budget cuts in many OECD countries, and reduced aid budgets for the developing countries.

In the wake of the Greek debt crisis and destabilization of the Euro zone, by the time the G20 met in Toronto in June 2010, the focus had shifted from stimulus to fiscal consolidation. This trend was confirmed at the latest G20 in Seoul last week, overshadowed by the US-China tension on trade imbalances and currency exchange rates.

And education is virtually nowhere on the agenda.

Today it is time to rethink.

The situation does vary significantly among countries – as three EI’s surveys of member organizations have shown. There are some bright spots. But in general, our campaign to put education in the spotlight in all countries and wherever leaders meet seems to have run out of steam.

There are both external and internal reasons for this.

Externally, the environment is far from favourable, as the pendulum of economic orthodoxy has swung back to cost-cutting of national budgets. The political environment in many countries has not been favourable either.

Internally, we have not maintained the vital link between global advocacy and national/local action that we talk about all the time. We have to ask ourselves why. Is it because national member organizations are overtaxed with the daily exigencies of responding to national situations? Talking with colleagues from other sectors, such as the banking industry, we are not alone. As one Global Union colleague put it: “Our national members are too busy putting out the fires at home to give much attention to our global calls for action”. Yet, we all recognize that the crisis was and remains a global one; that the way out must also be sought globally.

We will have to rethink how EI can help its member organizations join global advocacy to national action. Our campaign website “Hands-up for Education” needs revamping. It is hardly used anymore. Mea culpa: entries on this blog have not been as frequent either!

After the successful Quality Public Services: Action Now! Conference in Geneva last month, a new attempt will be made to mobilize locally, with joint campaigns to defend and promote public services in selected cities around the world.

But, if we are honest with ourselves and objective in our evaluation, the time has surely come to rethink our strategy for defence of education. Any suggestions?

A LITTLE BIT UTOPIAN

“When the untapped potential of a child meets the creative imagination of a teacher, a miracle occurs.”[1]

The vocation of teaching is, or ought to be, one of constant renewal. “New thinking, new approaches” is the title for the session in which I'll be speaking at the OECD Education Ministers' Forum tomorrow. Actually, this title sounds more like a slogan. When political decision-makers call for “new thinking, new approaches”, they often mean looking for ways of saving money. But the real challenge is to bring about fresh approaches where they count most - in the classroom. And the challenge for policy makers is to create the conditions enabling that to happen.

Over-emphasis on narrow “metrics” won't do it. There are things in education you can't measure. Policies like linking teachers' pay to student performance won't do it either. Such approaches are inherently reductionist. They overlook something essential about education: the miracle of opening young minds to knowledge, to their own capacities, to creativity, to motivation.

Jacques Delors proposed 10 years ago in a report for UNESCO on Education for the 21st century, four “pillars of learning”. Learning “to know”. Learning “to do” (skills). Learning “to be” (realizing one's potential). And learning “to live with others”. Good teachers build on these four pillars to foster a complete learning experience for their pupils. Their reward actually comes from seeing those miracles come about, day after day, year after year. It doesn't come from performance-related pay.

Sounds a little bit utopian? Maybe. Delors called education “the necessary utopia”. And that's really what motivates many, many teachers. That little bit of utopia is what keeps them going.

[1] Mary Hatwood Futrell, Founding President of Education International

Education and auto-insurance

‘Why should education be any different than auto-insurance?’ This was the question posed to teacher leaders at a forum in Edmondton, Canada, last week. The question was put by Peter Cowley of the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by some major corporations. Cowley’s argument was that the State should require all auto owners to have auto-insurance, but should not be the provider. By analogy, while the State should require that education be compulsory for all children, there was no reason, he suggested, why the State should be the provider. Cowley argued for a diversity of providers, competing with each other, thereby, he said, raising the overall quality of education.

The Canadian Teachers’ Federation had invited Cowley to its President’s Forum, held prior to the Annual General Meeting, precisely in order to hear the arguments being used to attack the concept of public education as we know it. His presentation was juxtaposed with an analysis of the neo-conservative agenda by Bruce Campbell, of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. While the Cowley presentation certainly succeeded in getting the adrenalin flowing for the participants, the point was that it reflected views more widespread than we would like to think in many countries, not least in the United States and in Europe. There are many who agree that education is important, but who also hold that provision should come more from the private sector. Somehow, it is felt, the private sector will put in the resources. This generally turns out to be wishful thinking, so the next level of argument is that competition should be introduced into the public sector in order to encourage efficiency. Hence the movement for Charter schools in the USA.

Along with increased competition come league tables, comparisons within and between countries, and the push for performance pay. The merit, if it can be called that, of the Cowley presentation was that it confronted teacher union leaders with the need to restate the case for public education. Nothing can be taken for granted. Nor is it sufficient to bemoan or deride the neo-liberal arguments. They must be addressed.

In the 21st century, the case for quality public education for all is as powerful as it ever was. At the Forum, it was put by CTF Secretary General Calvin Fraser under the heading ‘What should be the promise of public education?’ Calvin described the early history of public education in Canada and the notion of ‘the common school’, which became the basis for community development, national progress, and individual success in a country of immigration and great natural and human diversity. This is a history that can be repeated in every other industrialized country today. It is a basis for citizenship and participation in democracies. Why then, do we witness this movement to move away from public education, even to denigrate it, and to search around for something else to take its place?

We can debate the reasons for this shift in thinking among significant segments of opinion. That it is ideological in nature is certain. But what is the basis for applying this particular ideology, that of the market and competition, so persistently to education? My own conviction is that it is all a matter of interest. The rationale for pursuing policies that deepen economic inequality is very much the same as the rationale for policies that increase rather than diminish educational inequality. In both cases, the rationale is dictated by short-term particular interests, while the longer term common interest is neglected.

It is also certain that this continuing ideological pressure on the concept of public education has consequences for public funding. It leads naturally to starving public education of badly needed resources. There is pressure to ‘do more with less’. A vicious circle is set up, of diminishing resources and of more reasons to criticize public schools – leading to proposals for alternative forms of provision. This vicious circle has to be broken. We have to build, or in some cases rebuild, a consensus in political discourse that public education is the foundation for national, community and individual progress. To achieve that consensus, we have to build, or rebuild confidence in the quality of public education.

Rebuilding the consensus of public support for quality public education is eminently do-able, for there remains a strong reservoir of public support. But it will not just happen by itself. It will take the mobilization of education unions and their members, actively engaging with other actors of civil society which share our values. This must be the basis for our advocacy whether at the G20, the international institutions, or with each national or local government.
Tough political choices on public funding lie ahead. In this context, talk of other means of educational provision, of alternatives to public provision, is dangerous. The auto-insurance analogy is superficial but seductive. It would be unwise to under-rate it. We have articulated in our own circles the case for education as a public good, not a commodity. Our challenge is to take that case convincingly and credibly to wider communities, and to do so with a clear political agenda.

The G20 “shrinking agenda”: how the Canadian host gutted the G20 of substance

Unfortunately, the Toronto G20 met our expectations – which were very low! On the Monday before-hand, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy told the ITUC Congress in Vancouver that the summit had a “shrinking agenda”. Before that, on Friday 18 June, I participated on behalf of Global Union Federations in a consultation with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, host for the G8 and G20 “twin summits”. Although Global Unions made points on defence of the public sector in the face of “exit strategies”, we had few illusions about Mr Harper’s interest – or lack thereof – in education.

When you read the brief Leaders’ Declaration, you have to wonder how the Canadian government justified the expense to Canadian taxpayers. The cost was widely reported in local media as running up to $1.3 billion, with security costs 8 times those of the previous G20 in Pittsburgh. $1.3 billion would go a way towards closing the financing gap for Education for All! But EFA is not mentioned in the G20 Declaration. Instead it is referenced in an annex to the G8 Declaration on accountability for MDG commitments. The G20 Declaration gives a one-line mention in another annex to “appreciation” for the work of ILO and OECD on a training strategy (http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=1292&theme=ei&country=canada).

It was not for want of trying. EI affiliates in Canada, the CTF and FPUQ, wrote excellent letters to their Prime Minister, while CTF held a well-attended press conference, and achieved good media coverage, especially e-media. The Presidents of US affiliates NEA and AFT wrote a formidably well-argued joint letter to President Obama, backed up by a personal note from the AFL-CIO President to the US “Sherpa” (top official) for the summits. EI key messages were included in the Global Unions’ Statement to the G8 and G20. And EI participated on behalf of Global Unions in the consultation with the host Prime Minister.

That consultation was itself indicative of the approach of the host government. Flanked by two of his Ministers, for Labour and Human Resources and Skills, as well as his “Sherpa”, Stephen Harper said he would just “listen” to the trade union presentations. Thanks to well-framed questions put to him by ITUC’s Guy Ryder, Harper was drawn into a more interactive exchange with the delegation than he probably intended. He was articulate and politically astute. Neither of the Ministers said a word. While we felt that getting Harper to engage in the exchange was a small “plus”, at the end of the day it did not change much. It was to be contrasted with the convening, on the eve of the G8, of a B-20 summit of business leaders, at the invitation of the Canadian PM, and a commitment by the G8 to finance with public funds worthwhile business initiatives!

Nevertheless, as labour leaders we were clearly the object of a charm offensive by this right-wing politician. Harper has run a minority government for 4 years. In the Toronto Star the next morning I read an article on his strategy to outflank the left by supporting expansion of the publicly-run Canada Pension Plan. The article quotes CLC chief Ken Georgetti as lavishing praise on the decision, stating that the Conservatives have “felt the heartbeat of Canada on this one”. (Toronto Star, Sat June 19, 2010).

This all seemed to be consistent with what I observed in the consultation. An astute politician moves from his core base, in order to build support in the centre and create conditions for governing with a majority rather than a minority. The Toronto Star columnist notes, however, that ‘Harper’s strategy with popular social programs is not to eliminate them but to transform them over time into forms that he and his political base find more ideologically amenable’.

Harper proposed a photo with all of us in front of the G20 flags, with Ken beside him. It was rather obvious that we served mainly as a backdrop for the playing out of some domestic Canadian politics. Meanwhile, I thought of all our members, in the G20 countries and in 160 other countries, and the millions of children in those countries, who face education budget cuts and see the prospect of achieving Education for All recede over the horizon!

We knew that for the Canadian G8 and G20 summits, our task was to put down “markers”. This we did. The strong EI delegation at the ITUC Congress in Vancouver, backed by the many EI and PSI delegates in national delegations, succeeded in getting the ITUC to adopt a 7th priority on Defence of the Public Sector and Education and Health for All.

Our work to get EFA and Teachers on the G20 agenda must continue through the upcoming UN Summits and the G20 in Seoul, Korea, in November. By the time the G20 convenes again in France in June 2011, just before the EI World Congress in July, we want to see concrete proposals in place. Ambitious, hugely ambitious. But necessary!

At the G20: Close the financing gap; support qualified teachers

Statement by Bob Harris to the World Economic Forum,
Global Redesign Initiative Summit, Doha, 30-31 May 2010

Session on “Rebuild in Depth: Education”

If we are to rebuild in depth, we must start with people.

The premise of the Global Agenda Council on Education Systems is contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to education”.

Yet more than 60 years after that declaration was adopted at the United nations, and just 5 years before the new target date for achievement of Education for All, there are still 72 million children of primary school age out of school, and about the same number unable to go on to secondary school or to pursue relevant vocational education. The challenge was laid out clearly in the inspiring keynote address by Queen Rania yesterday.

The quantitative statistics for children and young people in school are actually significantly better than they were a decade ago. That is in itself a sign of hope. But today we face a challenge of quality in education, and linked with that, a challenge of relevance.

The issue of quality confronts us at 3 levels:
1. The statistics don’t tell the full story. Children registered for school may not all attend, and many drop out. This is of particular concern for girls.
2. When you have 100 children or more in a classroom, with a teacher who did a 3 week course after his/her secondary school, you do not have quality.
3. When schooling in such classes is limited to rote-learning, you do not have the quality of learning required for the 21st century.

The challenges of quality and relevance are there in all countries. But in the developing countries, the quality of education is a key factor in emerging from cycles of poverty and in achieving autonomous growth.

Desmond has spoken of the financing gap that has to be closed to achieve Education for All. I will speak of the people gap. We know from UNESCO that 10 million more qualified teachers will be required by 2015 to replace those who will retire and to meet the basic EFA goals.

In both cases, closing the financing gap, and closing the people gap, the approach we must take is essentially a bottom up approach. In addition to the report which you will find on your USB key, and copies are available here, we have produced side papers that make that clear. In the global community of the 21st century, we need a framework that creates opportunities for that bottom-up approach.

In both cases, we need leadership. We need political leadership. But also leadership from the international community, from the business community, from civil society, from the teaching profession, and from our universities. The engagement of all these actors is the key to an effective response to the challenge.

In Davos this year, when we presented our preliminary report, we heard many expressions of willingness to engage. There was consensus around the notion that people are the key, the people of education, and especially the teachers. In an age of unprecedented challenges, opportunities and risks, we need a new vision of teaching. It is a vision that recognizes that learning will be life-long, in school and out of school. It is a vision that will help children and young people to equip themselves for the skills they will need in the 21st century – to fulfill their potential, for themselves and for their communities. It is a vision that teachers will be able to apply the science of pedagogy, and the art of teaching to enable every child, every young person, to achieve his or her potential as a person and as a member of society.

But these teachers must themselves be equipped to fulfill this vision. There are 60 million teachers in the world today – internationally the largest professional group in the world, present in every community, and at least 10 million more needed within 5 years. This is a huge challenge. It engages the responsibility of all governments and it requires the engagement of all those groups I mentioned earlier.

The education and professional development of teachers is essential to systemic success. Our Global Agenda Council proposes a “Global Partnership for Teacher Education” to mobilize financial, human and intellectual resources in support of national initiatives to train qualified teachers.

We need a fresh approach to the mobilization of resources, and re-ordering of priorities. Investing in teacher education and professional development has often not happened yet it is precisely this investment that can have the biggest impact on quality. And it is not enough to recruit and train teachers. Frameworks for mentoring and professional development are needed 1) to assist these qualified teachers to improve their teaching skills, and 2) to enable teachers to develop throughout their careers, and 3) to motivate them.

Successful corporations know the importance of good human resource practices. Education Systems should do no less. Systemic failure to apply best practice translates into the loss of potentially good teachers, undercutting the effect of recruiting new teachers.

There is enormous potential to use the tools of the 21st century to support teachers. We recommend building on existing instruments to develop an Educators, Professional Development Portal and exchange capability. We recommend dissemination and localization of UNESCO’s framework on ICT competency for teachers, developed with three of the Forum’s leading constituents in the IT field. Multistakeholder support can be mobilized for the extension free broadband access for schools and teachers around the world.

The teaching profession is organized in much of the world through Education International and its national unions, bringing together teachers from pre-school to university. The profession is actively engaged in debates on issues of accountability, ethics, development of competency profiles, self and peer assessment. In all these questions the logical intergovernmental interface is UNESCO. Our GAC sees a leadership role for UNESCO. Responding to the challenges of rapidly changing world can be daunting. When Jacques Delors presented UNESCO’s report on education for the 21st century (Learning the Treasure Within) he described teaching as “the noblest of professions”. But the daily reality faced by 60 million teachers is often far from that aspiration.

Society expects much of its teachers, and those expectations are not diminishing. Global mobility means our societies are increasingly diverse, and even the most developed societies are increasingly unequal. It is an oversimplification to distinguish between the developing and the developed countries, for through migration the world comes into every community. In addition to their other tasks, teachers must encourage every child to take pride in his or her cultural identity, while respecting the cultural identity of others, and each school community must function according to that principle.

In another session yesterday, I heard Dennis Snower call for increased mobility of teachers facilitated by recognition of teacher education qualifications.

Even before the crisis there was the challenge of relevance for young people entering the job market for the fist time. Already, youth unemployment, whether in developing or so-called developed countries, is far too high. Now with fiscal consolidation in the OECD countries, there is a very real risk of a lost generation. G20 Labour and Employment Ministers met in Washington in March and presented their recommendations to President Obama for the G20 Leaders. They have stated clearly that a skills strategy is vital to sustainable recovery, and to a just transition toward green growth. And they also stated that quality basic education was the foundation. Again, if we are to expand VET, as we must, we should address the issue of training for VET teachers and instructors, which in turn raises questions of mobility between teaching and industry. Good work is being done on this at the ILO and the OECD. Importantly, this is an area where there is common ground between employers and trade unions, and scope for really practical work at the national and regional levels.

Like the Labour and Employment Ministerial , our GAC strongly supports the move to place education on the G20 agenda. Education and skills are factors in a smart strategy for sustainable recovery. We see the need for the active engagement of the emerging economies through the G20, and to go beyond the valuable declarations already made by the G8, to a more wholistic approach to education, as a factor of human development in the 21st century.

It means putting the emphasis back on people, investing in people through education. And that also means a renewed effort to put new emphasis on and mobilize support for the people of education – the teachers.