Ambition, Aspiration and Courage

In the newspaper for people who are pretty much guaranteed to be appointed either as Ministers or to chair Select Committees (in this case, probably her choice) in 2015, and in which Labour Party policy is effectively being announced, Pat Glass writes:

Sixty-five years ago the Convention on Human Rights pledged a free primary education for all. But for many children, particularly those living in the developing world, they are as far away from that becoming a reality today as 65 years ago.

Even in those countries where children do get some access to primary education, millions do not complete their primary education or leave schools with limited skills and poor reading and writing levels because the quality of teaching is variable to say the least.

Women and girls, as usual, come off worst, with less than 50 per cent of girls making it to secondary education in some African countries.

Across the world women make up almost two-thirds of the 796 million adults without even the most basic of literacy and numeracy skills.

The United Nations Millennium Goals committed to providing universal, free primary education for all children by 2015 and yet we are short of 1.8 million teachers to deliver this, and one million of these are needed in the sub-Saharan African area alone.

For those children who do manage to go to school in the developing world, many face learning in very large class sizes, poor teaching from inadequately trained and skilled teachers and a lack of resources such as text books and yet they still come. In some cases they walk miles every day to and from school such is their thirst to learn and drive to escape the poverty of their lives.

Good quality, free primary education should be the right of every child. This more than anything else has the power to transform lives.

This will help economic development and poverty relief and it will contribute to social stability and promote global health.

We know that children of mothers who receive five years of education are 40 per cent more lively to live beyond five years of age.

The recent If Enough Food for Everyone campaign has highlighted that malnutrition is the biggest root cause of child deaths around the world and that tax evasion and avoidance robs poorer countries of an estimated £102 billion per year.

Providing universal primary education across the world would help to end hunger and would cost a fraction of this amount.

Yet powerful global companies are failing to recognise that they need to be accountable to broader society if we are not to see more terrible incidents like the recent collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh.

Hundreds of lives were sacrificed in the name of cheap, throwaway clothes in the developed world.

For all these reasons I have been proud to sponsor early day motion 149 in Parliament that highlights the initiative by the Steve Sinnott Foundation - Sinnott was the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers - to promote in British schools an "Education for All Day" on Friday.

Through teaching and learning activities the foundation is drawing attention to the UN Millennium Development Goal II to provide universal primary education by 2015.

There are only two years to go and yet some 60 million children around the world are still not in school.

The foundation intends that Education for All should become a feature of the school calendar in a growing number of schools in 2014, 2015 and beyond, and is encouraging school leaders to adopt the initiative with enthusiasm so as to provide pupils and students in Britain with a greater understanding and awareness of the cause of education for all.

Sometimes it feels that we had greater aspirations and hopes for our children and for ourselves back in 1948.

At that time we were living in a time of austerity, Britain was practically bankrupt and saddled with massive debts after fighting total war for five years, but we had ambitions for ourselves and for others.

We created the NHS and a welfare system with a safety net for the poor and a free, compulsory, education system for our own children as well as a commitment to providing the same for others.

We find ourselves in similar circumstances today, but for different reasons. So what better time to rediscover the same ambition, aspiration and courage we had in 1948 and secure the universal free education for every child that we have been promising for more than 60 years?