Global Campaign for Education (GCE) launch new campaign to coincide with World Teachers' Day
(4 October 2004)On the eve of World Teachers' Day, October 5th, international agencies VSO and Oxfam accompanied two Zambian teachers to Washington DC. On behalf of the Global Campaign for Education, they called on the IMF to lift the burden of debt from the world’s poorest countries and change its approach to working with countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
A report published by VSO and Oxfam uses the example of Zambia where 8-9000 teachers are trained and ready to teach but the Zambian Government cannot afford to pay them while it is committed to servicing huge debts. The report published on behalf of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) criticises the IMF for failing to put people at the centre of their lending programmes.
The IMF failed to deliver much hope at the weekend and reacted angrily to the ‘Undervaluing Teachers’ report but failed to deliver a convincing argument against its key points. Instead the IMF rehearsed familiar arguments about the need for Zambia to demonstrate fiscal discipline as a precursor for economic growth and poverty reduction.
Lucia Fry of VSO responds:
Fiscal discipline is critical but will not be achieved by spending more on debt repayments to the IMF than on education. Even after Gordon Brown’s welcome move to cancel the UK’s proportion of third world debt, Zambia will still be paying more on debt repayments than it can spend on education this year.
GCE's new campaign calls, as Gordon Brown did this weekend in Washington, upon the IMF revalue its unused gold reserves. This would make possible a 100% cancellation of multilateral debt owed by the world’s poorest countries. For Zambia it would mean more money to spend on teachers' wages and provide a vital step towards the Millennium Development Goals on education.
Lucia Fry of VSO says:
Our volunteers in Zambia see every day how the low morale and desperate circumstances of their colleagues undermines the development efforts of Zambia. The 2015 Millennium Development Goal was supposed to be the realisation of a dream, but for Zambia it is turning into a nightmare.
Priscilla Madubiko a Zambian teacher added:
It is the children who are suffering. I have to teach two classes at once due to teacher shortages - how can I give a quality education when there are 70 pupils to a class?
Editors' notes
- The Global Campaign for Education is a worldwide coalition of organisations which campaigns for free quality education for all
- For more info and to talk to a spokesperson, please contact the VSO Press Office
