Global Campaign for Education US
Student Toolkit for Advocacy
171 million people could be lifted out of poverty if all students in low-income countries left school with basic reading skills. This is equivalent to a 12 percent drop in the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day.
That is the combined populations of: Australia Cambodia Canada Columbia Netherlands Tunisia and Uganda Design/Layout: Manu Badlani, By-line
Why?
You Why you? Because youth have been the voice of important change for decades across countries and continents. Students, throughout the world, have consistently demonstrated the capacity to use their voices to create change. Youth are uniquely positioned to advocate for greater access to education and improvements in school quality because you recognize and understand the power of education to open doors leading to greater economic, social, and psychological well-being. This advocacy toolkit provides students with models of how they can act to promote access to quality education for children around the world. The kit also identifies ways for students to join the Global Campaign for Education-US and to call on the US government to make quality education for children around the world a key international development priority.
This Issue Why this issue? The impact of education reverberates at the core of each international development barrier that hinders our world’s growth and equality across countries. Access to quality education for both girls and boys has been shown to increase child and maternal health, agricultural production and decrease internal country conflict. Creating a path for success through education is the best way to ensure that other development solutions stick and provide long lasting results.
Fast Facts Child and Maternal Health • 195 million children currently experience malnutrition. The largest contributing factor to reducing child malnutrition has been the education of women. • In Latin America, children whose mothers have some secondary education remain in school for two to three more years than children of mothers with less schooling. • A child born to a mother who can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past the age of five. • In Indonesia, child vaccination rates are 19 percent when mothers have no education; that number increases to 68 percent when mothers have at least secondary school education. • 700,000 HIV cases worldwide could be prevented each year if all children received a primary education. • Child survival rates jump 40 percent if girls are educated for five years.
Economics • Each additional year of schooling raises average annual gross domestic product by .37 percent. • In Kenya, if women farmers were given the same level of education as their male partners, their yields for corn, beans and cowpeas would increase by up to 22 percent. • One extra year of education increases a person’s wages approximately 10 percent. For girls, the rate of return for one additional year of primary education is as high as 15 percent. • Europeans and Americans spend $31 billion a year on ice cream alone. Just half of that ($16 billion) a year would send all children to school in low income countries.
Conflict • In conflict-affected low-income countries, 28 million children of primary children are out of school—42 percent of the world total. • If the 21 developing countries that spend more money on military expenditures than primary education cut their military expenditures by 10 percent, an additional 9.5 million children could have access to education.
How? Current trends will leave 56 million school-aged children still out of school by 2015. We need you to spread the word and take action. How can you help?
Learn Today, just over 60 million children around the world do not have access to basic education and of that 61 million, almost 50 percent of them are expected to never enroll. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 10 million children drop out of primary school every year. Investing in quality education is vital to ensuring success across all development sectors. Education reduces world hunger, helps eradicate global poverty, improves healthcare outcomes, promotes global security, and advances economic growth. Educated children grow up to earn higher wages, contribute to stronger economies, support healthier and more prosperous families, and create more stable and secure societies.
Ways to learn about the issue: Contact a professor or organization that focuses on global education, to learn about their experiences and projects. You can also ask the professor or organization to give a presentation on your campus to raise awareness about global education. Looking for a list of organizations? Check out our coalition partners http://www. campaignforeducationusa.org/coalition-members. Invite a Peace Corps volunteer to give a presentation. Through Peace Corps you can participate in a Speaker Match to bring a returned peace corps volunteer to speak on their experiences with education in his/her volunteer country. http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/ speakersmatch/. Watch a movie about education in developing nations and screen it on campus. Several members of our coalition have produced movies about education such as: • 10x10 Our partner organization, 10x10, a global campaign to educate girls, is producing a feature length film telling the stories of 10 girls in 10 different countries as they strive for an education. http://10x10act.org/
• The Girl Effect This great short video uses words to demonstrate the benefits of girls’ education. This would be great to use at the beginning of an event. http://www.girleffect. org/learn/the-big-picture • To Educate a Girl This documentary is about the struggle girls face in accessing a quality education; it has a special emphasis on the challenges in Nepal and Uganda. For more information about the film go to http://www. toeducateagirl.com/ and to watch the film go to www. viewchange,org/videos/to-educate-a-girl • A Powerful Noise This powerful story is about three women — a girls’ education crusader from Mali, an HIV-positive widow from Vietnam, and a peacemaking survivor of the war in Bosnia — each of whom overcomes immense challenges to bring change to their communities. Go to www.apowerfulnoise.com to find a screening near you. Also available is a film discussion guide-a great took if you plan to watch the film as a group. • Building Hope Produced by Actor, Director, and Social Activist Turk Pipkin, this inspiring film chronicles the construction of Mahiga Hope Academy, a high school in a remote African community. Proceeds from the film benefit the Kenya Schools fund, which builds classrooms, libraries, computer labs, and water systems at rural Kenyan schools. Go to nobelity.org/building-hope-2011 to find a film screening near you, or to contact Turk about hosting a screening on your campus! • PBS Wide Angle Time for School Series will be a 12-year look at education across the globe. Time for School 1 was released in 2002. Producers returned to schools in 2006 and the latest update took place in 2009. Through a series of videos, viewers can follow students in schools across the world and observe how the foreign student’s education is similar and different from their own. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/ time-for-school-series/introduction/4340 More Resources: Viewchange.org has more than 100 videos highlighting the importance of providing access to quality education for all.
Educate
Word of mouth is one of the best ways to increase awareness about the important role that the US can play in promoting education in the poorest countries, because people are most likely to listen to their friends. You can inspire others to engage in simple acts, both online and around your campus, that will promote US investments in education at home and abroad.
Online Organizing:
You can also do this with your gchat status!
Online organizing is a great way to reach lots of people rapidly. It’s also easy for others to send the information onto more people and therefore reach a wider audience quickly.
Use Twitter to:
Use Facebook to: • Like GCE-US www.facebook.com/campaignforeducationusa • Make your Status about GCE-US Here’s some suggestions for status updates: • Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy, and sustainable human development – Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. • Over 60 million children don’t have access to basic education and more than half of them are girls. Check out www.gce-us.org to find out what you can do to change this! • Imagine if you couldn’t go to school and you couldn’t read my status update. We have the power to give the gift of education to children. Find out more at www. gce-us.org Make sure to keep checking the GCE-US website for more updates on policies and actions you can promote through your status!
• Follow GCE-US – @GCE_US You can tweet a fact about education however often you’d like. Make sure that you hashtag with #ed4all #educationforall #educationisahumanright and call our attention to it with a @GCE_US Here are some suggestions for tweets: Did you know that the 50 percent of the 60 million children not in school will never go? Find out what you can do to help at http://www.campaignforeducationusa. org/get-involved #ed4all Did you know that almost 800 million people are illiterate? Find out what you can do to help at http:// www.campaignforeducationusa.org/get-involved #ed4all Blog about education in developing countries: Do you have your own blog? Do you want to write about ways people can change the world? If you answered yes to either one of these questions, you can use your existing blog or create a new one to write about global education. GCE-US has four info sheets on our website about key areas that intersect with education, such as food security, global security, women and girls, and global health. You
can either write one blog post about why education affects all of these issues or you can write four different blog posts! Here’s the link to our factsheets: http://www. campaignforeducationusa.org/news-and-resources/ resources/ E-mail Your Network: E-mail is a powerful way to spread information (and one of the fastest ways, too) because virtually everyone has an e-mail address. In addition, e-mails are easy to forward onto others, especially people who don’t use social media but are interested in expanding education for children in developing countries. Tips: 1. Keep it short. People often do not read long e-mails so make it short and powerful. Always close with a statement that suggests that people contact you for more information. Also make sure to include the GCEUS website address (www. gce-us.org) in the e-mail so people can learn more about the campaign. 2. Make it Personal. People respond best to personal e-mails and stories. Make sure to include why YOU care about education and why OTHERS should also care. You can also include a short personal story. Try and make the issue relevant to people’s lives. 3. Always include an Action people can take. Once you have people’s attention you have to give them a way to do something about the issue you are telling them about. Try to keep the first action people take simple.
Ask people to tell you if they took the action and if they’d be interested in taking more actions in the future (and keep this info handy). Don’t have time to write an e-mail from scratch? Need some inspiration to get you going? Check out our dormstorming script for a template (see next section). If you need a good hook to start your e-mail, check out our facebook status updates and tweet suggestions.
Offline Organizing: Face-to-face discussions and organizing are still the most effective way to engage people and get them involved. People are more likely to join an organization or a movement if they have close ties with someone already in the organization. Dormstorm: Dormstorming is a great way to have quick one-onone conversations while also getting a large number of people to engage in an action such as signing a petition or donating to the cause. Here’s a sample script that you can use: “Hi, can I talk to you for a minute? Did you know that over 60 million children a year don’t have a chance to go to school? Part of the reason for this is that many countries lack the infrastructure and funding needed to provide enough schools, especially in rural areas. Now you might ask yourself, why does this matter to the United States? It has been proven that education is one of the best mechanisms for economic development, and improving US national security. So what can you do to help those 60 million children secure an education? You can join GCE-US at www.gce-us.org.” The same tips for writing an effective e-mail also apply to crafting an effective dorm storming narrative. Don’t be afraid to edit your script for the issue you are working on. Info Booths Around Campus Another great way to raise awareness is through info booths in popular areas around campus, such as student centers or dining halls. In this setting you can use the same script you would for dormstorming. If you have a table, make sure to use posters with pictures that will catch people’s eyes. Tip: Don’t be afraid to be loud to gain attention for education!
Advocate
It is estimated that US $16 billion dollars annually is needed to fill the education gap and to reach the Education for All goals. With the Global Partnership for Education facing depleted budgets from donor countries, now more than ever is the time to take action and continue to make opportunities available to children in developing countries. Here’s several ways that you can take action on education: • Write letters to your representative and senators and tell them education should be a priority in this Congress! For a guide on how to write effective letters, check out RESULTS’s guide http:// www.results.org/skills_center/advocacy_how_tos/ working_with_congress/milestone_8/ • Host a Call in Day One of the most effective advocacy tools is calling your members of Congress. The more they hear that you care about an issue, the more important it becomes to them. It’s really fun to get your friends together and host a public event on campus and ask others to call as well – see if the campus radio station will help out. RESULTS has a great guide for how to make these calls: http://www.results.org/skills_ center/advocacy_how_tos/working_with_congress/ milestone_7/ • Get signatures for a petition This is one of the fastest ways that people can show support for an issue. You can create your own petition, but first check and see if any of our coalition members have actions in progress because adding
your voices to that petition can make it resonate more with the recipient. If you are going to start a petition let GCE-US know by e-mailing us at info@ campaignforeducationusa.org • Write a “letter to the editor” of you local newspaper about education in the developing world and why it’s important to you. For an effective guide to writing letters, check out RESULT’s website http://www.results.org/skills_ center/advocacy_how_tos/working_with_the_ media/milestone_18/ If you get a letter published
make sure to let GCE-US know by e-mailing info@ campaignforeducationusa.org so we can feature it on the website and our social media sites!
Do you have ideas that you didn’t see here? Did you use one of these ideas to host a successful event? Let us know by e-mailing GCE-US at info@campaignforeducationusa. org! The staff at the GCE-US are excited to work with you to harness the power of student voices for education! If you’d like to get more involved with the GCE-US please e-mail GCE-US at
[email protected] to find out how.
Join
Is there an organization on your campus that works on international education or poverty issues? If so, join and bring your passion and excitement to the organization. Current organizations are a great place to start and they offer ample opportunities to meet like-minded people to help you act on behalf of quality education for all. If there is not an organization that exactly fits, maybe you can bring it into a current organization (sorority, fraternity, honor society, etc.) you are a part of as an additional focus or interest area. Your organization can take it up as a social awareness project or community service project. Additionally, you can join other organizations and like-minded individuals at national youth conferences focused on global and social issues. Examples include the annual Millennium Campus Conference or the RESULTS International Conference. Feel free to check the GCE-US website (www.gce-us.org) for updated information.
Volunteer A great way to get involved is to volunteer with an organization. Our coalition members offer many opportunities for those passionate about what education can do for people, their countries and the world. Explore our coalition member page to find an opportunity just right for you! http://www. campaignforeducationusa.org/coalition-members
Create
If nothing completely fits what you want to do, then start your own campus chapter of an international organization! Our coalition members offer great information and resources to help you get a chapter organization off the ground on your campus! Check out these websites for guidelines on how to create a chapter and partner with them in pursuits of objectives in the education arena. buildON: An organization that builds schools in developing countries and runs after-school programs in some of America’s toughest inner cities. http://www.buildon.org/get-involved/buildon-chapters/ NEA: The largest public service union dedicated to public education for all students. http://www.nea.org/home/2580.htm
School Girls Unite: A chapter organization in the United States and Mali that works to show the power of educating girls. http://www.schoolgirlsunite.org/UniteWithUs BuildingTomorrow: An organization that supports young people in using their resources to in turn support youth in sub-Saharan Africa in their pursuit of education. http://www.buildingtomorrow.org/zeta/get-involved/ college/ New Global Citizens An organization that desires to inspire youth to become active members of the global citizenry. http://www.newglobalcitizens.org/team-experience/ team-experience/start-your-team-1 UNICEF An international organization helping children in the areas of health care and immunizations, clean water and sanitation, nutrition, education, emergency relief http://volunteers.unicefusa.org/ RESULTS An organization dedicated to being a leading force in ending poverty in the U.S. and the world. http://www.results.org/take_action/become_a_results_ activist/ Note: Your student government will also have guidelines for formally registering your organization as a student club.
Background
Global Campaign for Education, US: Overview The Global Campaign for Education, US (GCE-US) is a broad-based coalition of US organizations including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), teachers unions, foundations, faith-based groups and scholars dedicated to ensuring greater access to quality basic education for children in developing countries. GCE-US promotes access to quality education as a basic human right and aims to mobilize the public to create political will in the US and internationally to improve educational opportunities for children regardless of where they are born. As a coalition, we also work to promote greater awareness of the importance of pre-school education, eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, increase adult literacy rates, and prevent abusive child labor.
Current Objectives of the US Chapter of the Global Campaign for Education: • Bolstering US Participation in the Global
Partnership for Education: Between 2002 and 2009, 19 million more children were enrolled in school in Global Partnership countries worldwide. Despite these encouraging results, the Global Partnership faces persistent funding shortfalls. GCE-US urges the US Government to stand with other donor countries and support the Global Partnership for Education. • Supporting the Education for All Act: The Education
for All Act is a mechanism to increase access to schooling in poor countries and to improve the quality of education offered. The bill calls on the U.S. to support a multilateral education initiative that adheres to strong principles of aid effectiveness. In difficult economic times, coordinating aid with other countries provides a cost-effective way to deliver aid to education without having to expand bilateral aid. It reduces overhead, relying on donor agencies with the lowest unit cost and the greatest comparative
advantage to deliver its support in each country – ensuring that donor aid has the most impact. GCE-US is committed to supporting the Education for All Act. • Making Education a Global Development Priority:
Children who attend first-class early education and care programs are 40 percent less likely to repeat a grade, 30 percent more likely to graduate from high school, and more than twice as likely to go to college. It is estimated that universal access to voluntary, quality early education would add 3 million jobs and almost $1 trillion annually to U.S. GDP over the long term. In short, investing in highquality early childhood education is an efficient way to build human capital and strengthen the overall economy. Despite research showing that achieving universal basic education would promote economic growth, build stable societies, and save lives, the Administration’s Global Development Strategy does not include education as a development priority. GCEUS is calling on the president to make education a global development priority of his administration.
• Removing Barriers for Girls Secondary Education:
Today, more than 55 percent of out-of-school children are girls, and two-thirds of adults without access to literacy are women. Investing in a girl’s education is an investment in a more prosperous future – not only for girls, but for entire communities and countries. Study after study shows that investing in the education of women and girls can reduce poverty, stimulate the economy, and lead to better health and nutrition outcomes for women and their families. GCE-US advances policy that removes these barriers to secondary education so girls are able to achieve their full potential. Securing Support for the Global Partnership for Education The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is a multilateral (many countries) education initiative that brings together donor governments, low-income countries, civil society organizations, and the private sector to achieve the Education for All goals. The centerpiece of the Global Partnership for Education is the establishment of a fund that is used to support ambitious national education strategies in developing countries. Over the past year, the Global Partnership for Education has taken huge strides to ensure that it supports country-ownership, mutual accountability, transparency, and aid effectiveness. Future steps include a goal of raising $2.5 billion by 2014 from traditional and new donors in order to achieve quality education for all. Currently, the US funds global basic education efforts directly through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). However, directing education funding to developing countries through a multilateral initiative like the Global Partnership for Education leverages commitments from other donors and from developing countries, ensuring our aid dollars go farther. Thus, coordinating US aid to education through the GPE is “smart aid” because each dollar of aid will result in more support for children, schools, and teachers in developing countries. At the November 2011 Pledging Conference of the GPE, the US government was one of 58 international
education donors who pledged a total of $1.5 billion in donations. The pledges will help the GPE enroll 25 million children into classrooms for the first time, train 600,000 new teachers and reduce illiteracy for primary school aged children. Despite this evidence (and despite the fact that the US is a voting member of the Global Partnership for Education’s Board of Directors), The US pledged to less than two percent of the $1.5 billion in donations, less than one percent of the targeted goal of $ 2.5 billion by 2014. The lack of a strong and sustained US contribution to the GPE during the replenishment results in a lack of priority towards education around the world and signals to other donors that the US, as the world’s largest economy, still chooses to not take initiative as a leader in the global efforts to achieve a breakthrough in the universal provision of basic education. If not now, when will the US meet the challenge of committing sufficient resources to the Global Partnership for Education? For more information on the GPE, please visit www. globalpartnership.org The US Education for All Act The Education for All (EFA) Act seeks to ensure that US policy contributes to a successful international effort to provide all children with a quality basic education. To achieve this goal, the EFA Act lays out a US education aid policy for developing countries that envisions education as the foundation for community development and centers on working with other developed countries, international organizations, and civil society to assist recipient countries in strengthening their education systems. Moreover, the EFA act also supports increased access to schools, improved quality, building country capacity and country ownership of their education systems, and multilateral assistance (such as the Global Partnership for Education). For more information on the EFA Act check out our partner Organization RESULTS’ Fact Sheet http://www. results.org/uploads/files/EFA_Act_of_2011_Fact_Sheet. pdf
Sources Education Counts, EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO 2011, www.efareport.unesco.org Reaching the marginalized, EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO 2010, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/reports/2010-marginalization/ The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education, EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO 2011, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/ reports/2011-conflict/ UIS Fact Sheet, Reaching Out-of-School Children is Crucial for Development, http://www.uis.unesco.org/FactSheets/Documents/fs-18-OOSC-2.pdf “A New Compact for Global Education.” ONE Campaign. Web. 5 June. 2012.
. “The Case for Further Investment.” The Education for All Fast Track Initiative. Web 5 June. 2012.
. “The Lancet Series on Child Development in Developing Countries.” Global Child Development Group. Web. 5 June. 2012 . “Ten Things You Need to Know About Education For All.” United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Web. 5 June. 2012 . “Quality Early Education: Good for the Kids and the Economy.” Reuters. The Great Debate. Web. 5. June. 2012. .
