Next week (April 24-30) is Global Campaign for Education Action Week. More than 100 countries will mark the occasion by calling for a bigger commitment to education.
Among the groups taking part is PLAN International. Colin McCallum is a spokesperson for the organization. From London, he spoke to English to Africa’s Joe De Capua.
“Plan has got a number of activities taking place in about 20 countries all over the world. We’re going to be helping thousands of children lobby their governments for better access to trained teachers…. The problem is there are over 100 million children around the world who don’t have access to school at the moment. And so the idea behind the action week is to raise this issue again and say, ‘Let the developed world do something about this. We still need another 15 million teachers.’”
PLAN will launch its “Send Us Teachers” campaign. “Loads of school children all over Africa and Asia are going to be making cardboard cutouts of teachers, representing teachers that aren’t actually there at the moment. And they’re going to be taking these to their local educational authorities and saying, ‘Look, here we are. All we’ve got is a cardboard teacher. You’ve got to send us a real one.’”
At last year’s G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, education was listed as a priority. But PLAN says, “There is a $10 billion a year funding shortfall, which the G8 countries must tackle to make education a reality for all children.”