High Stakes for Planet Earth

An international union leader speaks out on testing, globalization, and achieving world literacy.

Education International (EI), the world federation of educators' unions, has a lot on its plate these days. For starters, EI is taking part in a world campaign to provide an education for every child up to age 12. EI--of which NEA is a member--also works to improve the skills and the living standards of educators around the globe. In addition, it's fighting privatization, and trying to stop governments from blaming educators when social ills really are the main reasons children fail to achieve in school. EI Secretary-General Fred van Leeuwen visited Washington, D.C., recently and talked with NEA Today's Alain Jehlen about some of the challenges facing educators and their unions worldwide.

The big issue in public K-12 education here is testing kids and then punishing schools where kids don't reach the standard. How does the testing situation in the United States compare with Western Europe?
VAN LEEUWEN: The situation in most European countries is not that much different. Testing has always been, in education circles, the subject of heated debate. Governments like these systems where they can compare everything with everything and just put out a measure. But when you work with children of different backgrounds and different problems, you need to take that into account. If you have children from immigrant sections of big cities who have difficulties speaking the language, for example, it is not fair to compare that school with a school in a rich area where they enter school already knowing how to read and write. But we live in a time where everything must be measured, and everything must be translated into figures. I believe that it's our role to slam on the brakes once in a while.

Fred van Leeuwen

We have a law that prescribes very specific punishments for schools. Is that also the case in Europe?
VAN LEEUWEN: There are punishments in the United Kingdom where it's not just about test scores but also the behavior of children--if there is a lot of violence in schools and so forth. There's a whole range of issues for which you can be punished or closed as a school. A few years ago, they developed this, in my view, somewhat strange way to measure school quality. They set up inspection teams with four or five school inspectors, one of whom would be an amateur, not a professional inspector. It would be almost like a jury. They go into a school, stay four or five days, and then assess the situation, and, on the basis of their reports, the school may get an official warning.

It created a lot of unrest among teachers. People got really nervous when these inspectors entered schools without warning. It's really very severe. But, I am certain that this is not going to last. Teachers are simply not going to accept it. And I think, at some point, the governments also will see that this is a dead-end road. We will come out of it, I'm sure. It may take a few years, though.

We are always hearing about globalization of the world economy. What does that mean for education?
VAN LEEUWEN: Within the World Trade Organization, the member states are trying to liberalize trade in goods. But there's also now an effort to liberalize trade in services, which would include education. It's called the General Agreement on Trade and Services. The World Trade Organization says education is not part of this, but we at EI feel education is covered--not because we like it, but if you read the agreement, it's very clear, it's all services that can be treated as commodities. And, we believe that it's wrong.

Why is it wrong? Because education is a public good, and should be governed on behalf of the public. If education is provided by companies or other groups rather than by public authorities, then they can limit access. They can ask high prices. We see that happening. And it can be an excuse for governments not to do their utmost. They can say, look, all these companies are organizing higher education courses. Why should we provide those services when the market can do it?

Is this mostly a danger for very poor countries?
VAN LEEUWEN: It's first of all a danger for very poor countries. But we do see that, particularly in higher education, industrialized nations also find it easier to let private companies organize university education.

But, the greater danger is in developing countries, and they may do this under pressure of the industrialized nations. Let's say a European country wants to establish an agreement with Somalia under the framework of the World Trade Organization. They would say, okay, we will allow you to sell your green beans in our country if you allow us to organize education in your country.

And Somalia could be tempted. First, they can sell their beans. And, second, they do not have to make the investments in education that we believe they should make.

You came to Washington as part of Education International's effort to influence the World Bank's policies. What is that about?
VAN LEEUWEN: The international community decided a few years ago that, by the year 2015, all children should be able to go to school up to the age of 12, the "Education for All" endeavor. We're talking about 115 million children worldwide who do not go to school. Two-thirds of them are girls.

That's quite an undertaking. Some countries believe that just putting many, many children into schools will solve the problem. We say, no, it's not just having children in schools. We want them to learn something as well.

The World Bank has encouraged governments to recruit what they call "volunteer teachers." Those are unqualified teachers who would be paid less than qualified teachers. And we have a big problem with that. If you do that, you're undermining education quality. In the past 10 years, we had a very good relationship with the Bank. We thought we could consider them allies. But we felt betrayed when the Bank started to give in on the quality issue. That's one thing.

Two, the World Bank is encouraging governments to limit teachers' pay according to a formula. We say, teachers' organizations have the right to bargain collectively and come to an agreement with the authorities about the salary.

What's the reason for the bank's position?
VAN LEEUWEN: There's not enough money to realize this Education for All objective, to have all the children, by the year 2015, go to school. And when the money is not there, you're going to look for ways to do it cheaper.

Today, 70 percent of our members live below the poverty line. They do not obtain enough salary to make ends meet. We have calculated that we need 10 million more teachers to achieve the Education for All targets. We have 60 million teachers at the moment, worldwide, and you need 70 million. We think, in order to achieve that target, you must pay teachers better. But the World Bank is now on this different track. And that makes this relationship a little bit strained.

What can American teachers do to promote world literacy?
VAN LEEUWEN: The United States has not come close to meeting its commitment to the Education for All effort, so pressure must be exerted on the American government to realize that commitment. That means money, and it means enabling Third World countries to develop their economies by not closing borders to their products, such as agricultural products.

Countries and people need each other to survive on this planet. I think it's important to be aware of that, particularly at this time, when you have governments that seem to have forgotten about this.

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The Global Campaign for Education, a grouping of major non-governmental organizations including Education International, recently issued report cards for 22 rich nations on how well they've fulfilled the pledge they made at a 2000 conference in Dakar, Senegal. That pledge: to provide enough money so that poor countries with good education plans can give all children a free basic education by 2015.

The United States, according to the report, definitely needs improvement. It ranked 20th out of 22, for a grade of E.

Only the Netherlands got an A, while Norway and Sweden got B's. Greece and New Zealand got F's.

The report graded wealthy nations on several aspects of their aid for basic education, including the total amount given and the degree to which aid was focused on the poorest countries.

Using United Nations data, the report noted that the United States provided about $200 million in funding for basic education in poor countries in 2001--7 percent of the amount needed to fulfill the Dakar promise.

The Basic Education Coalition, made up of 18 organizations that promote development, is calling on the United States to raise its annual contribution for basic education in developing nations to $1 billion.