“Between Knowing and Doing: Education in Portuguese Development Cooperation”, presented on February 29 by the Global Campaign for Portuguese Education (CGE).
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. It is with this quote from Nelson Mandela that the study “Between Knowing and Doing: Education in Portuguese Development Cooperation”, presented on February 29 by the Portuguese Global Campaign for Education (CGE), begins.
The presentation was made by its author, consultant Patrícia Magalhães Ferreira, together with Mariana Hancock, CGE National Coordinator; Maria Antónia Barreto, CEA Researcher and Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria; and Manuel Correia, President of IPAD. The debate was moderated by Clara Carvalho, President of the CEA at ISCTE-IUL.
The study, coordinated by the Gonçalo da Silveira Foundation (FGS), as the organization responsible for the GCE Secretariat, was co-financed by the Portuguese Institute for Development Support (IPAD), and aims to promote a debate on Portuguese Cooperation in the Education sector and provide new tools for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) involved in actions in this area.
The study brings together a series of recommendations for public organizations and civil society working in this sector, based on the sectoral and geographical disparities in access to education in the current international context. “The challenges are still enormous with regard to the Education For All goals, such as pre-school education, skills development and adult literacy,” the study reports.
“The international commitments made within the framework of the MDGs played a fundamental role in defining a global agenda for action, but today they are insufficient in the face of the needs and challenges that developing countries face in the education sector,” according to the study, which also stresses the need to “develop efforts and partnerships to place education at the center of global development in the post-2015 agenda.”
On this last point, it is also proposed to “emphasize the impact of education on economic growth and sustainable development, pressing for the systematic inclusion of this theme in international meetings on development and economic issues (including the G-20 and other high-level meetings)”.
In conclusion, the text recommends that Portuguese public institutions, with responsibilities for cooperation in the education sector, “develop concerted action to advocate for education as a central vector for global development, together with official bodies in Portugal and Europe, including through Education for Development”.
The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) originated from an international coalition that emerged in 1999, within the framework of the World Forum on Education in Dakar (2000), made up of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations, of which AIDGLOBAL is a member, school centers, educational unions and various social movements committed to the right to education.
AIDGLOBAL has been organizing the Global Action Week for Education (SAGE) in the partner schools where the Education for Development project “Educar para Cooperar - Loures” 2nd edition is taking place, which this year will take place between April 22 and 28. “Early Childhood Education and Care” is the theme of the 2012 action.
The Study can be consulted here.
