Last Night in London

Saturday and Sunday, I have been cooped up in the Hotel Barbican for marathon meetings of the board of the GCE - Global Campaign on Education. It’s our first face to face meeting since we got elected last January in Brazil, and our next will be January 2009 in Bangladesh, so we have a full agenda, with more than 30 items and papers to discuss.

After our last session, we hied off to an Italian resto. On the way back to the Barbican Hotel, I spotted this internet place. As soon as we got off at the hotel, I walked back so I can post a short blog before I fly back home tomorrow.

The hotel’s internet access was down the past two days, and I couldn’t check my e-mails or post a blog. But for the next 15 minutes (the place closes at 11 pm), here are some quick snapshots.

At breakfast last Saturday, the hotel had free copies of TIME magazine for early risers, and I took my breakfast while reading the piece on Nelson Mandela’s “Secrets of Leadership.” It’s an inspiring and instructive breakfast read. I agree with the writer that he is as close as we have for a contemporary “secular saint” especially with his beatific smile. I smiled at his self-description as a “trouble maker” whose time in prison tempered to maturity. I think back to my own time in prison teaching me “patient impatience.”

Our board meeting had its routinary moments, but also some good debates, with just enough emotions and heat to give it spice and keep me awake despite jet lag. Later, I told Kailash, GCE president, that some of the debates reminded me of Mao Zedong’s quip, “Without contradiction, there is no life.” By that standard, our board meeting is alive. But the contradictions are non-antagonistic, since they are disagreements on how best to achieve shared goals and visions.

For a number of years, the GCE has been most visible during the April Global Action Week. Why April? Because it was in April 2000 that the renewed commitment to Education for All by 2015 was adopted in Dakar, Senegal. I had a good conversation this morning at breakfast with Gorgiu who comes from Dakar, and I hope he can come sometime to the Philippines to tell us about his work in Senegal and across Africa, as coordinator of ANCEFA.

But part of the growth and evolution of GCE is its more nuanced focusing of its campaign. The general awareness-raising through globally coordinated and highly visible activities will continue, and we hope that the 7.5 million mobilized this year will reach 10 million in 2010. But these are not just geared to support the advocacy to make G-7 countries give their needed share to fill the financing gap in the South. The first goal of the GCE has been defined as focusing on governments in the South to commit the resources needed to achieve EFA. The benchmark figures are 6% of GNP and 20% of the national budget.

In the early years, EFA tended to be understood mainly as universal primary education. In Brazil, the GCE emphasized that all the 6 EFA goals should be addressed, espcailly the most neglected goals of cutting adult illiteracy in half and providing youth and adults appropriate learning opportunities. This becomes more urgent in the run up to CONFINTEA 6, the international conference on adult education which will be held in Brazil in May 2009.

Also, beyond simple access and completion, the GCE wants to give emphasis on quality of education and learning outcomes, and reaching the unreached.

There are many stories to tell and conversations to narrate in some future blogs. But for tonight, let me sign off and catch a bit more sleep before waking up early for the trip to Heathrow 4. I guess I will be back in the Philippines before my body adjusts to the jet lag, so I don’t need to re-adjust and can face the work I had to leave behind for this quick trip to London. I arrive Tuesday morning, and in the afternoon, I will be at the La Mesa Eco Park to discuss the idea of making it an Eco Academy. The next day, we meet with Synergeia on its work in Muslim Mindanao to provide relevant and enhanced learning for out of school youth. And there are the last few paintings I have to finish for my solo exhibit that opens on August 1.

It just occured to me that I am also celebrating the anniversary of my blogging. One year ago, on July 12, I posted my first blog. Checking the number of postings, I average one every other day. I hope that the momentum continues. Thank you to those who tell me they read me regularly. I encourage you to also post your thoughts and join the conversation in cyberspace.

Good night.

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