Global Action Week for Education 2019
Under the patronage of his excellency the director general of the media authority Mr. Mohammad Qtaishat With the participation of the head of the Teachers Syndicate Dr. Ahmed Al-Hajaya as part of activities of the global action week 2019. the Arab Network Civic Education-ANHRE and Jordanian coalition for education conducted a launching ceremony of Global Action Week for Education 2019 under the Theme (My education is my right) on Monday-29th April 2019 in Jordan-Amman, In the presence of educators, media professionals, academics and representatives of civil society institutions and institutions interested in education.
The ceremony included a discussion session about the role of investigating journalism in making the right to public, inclusive, equitable and free education to be real. The session aimed to highlight on the importance of investigating press in influencing education issues and developing the tools of civil society institutions to build an institutional approach based on accountability of governments on the same line with regard to achieving normative content of right to education and ensuring effective implementation of the fourth goal of the sustainable development goals, which emphasizes ensuring quality, equitable and inclusive education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.
This activity is part of the activities of the Global Action Week for Education 2019, which is being implemented this year under the theme “My Education Is My Right.” It is an international campaign that seeks to unite all voices on the same subject and present systematic and unified demands to decision-makers in the field of education, with the participation of audiences around the world, where millions of people participate annually in this occasion in about 100 countries from all over the world.
In his turn, the sponsor of the ceremony, Mr. Muhammad Qutaishat, stressed that the role of investigative press is revealing and documenting hidden information, not only revealing the announced information, as the advertiser is announcing, so it is necessary to focus on the undeclared issues that include statistics, figures and sensitive issues that delay the process of making education (public, inclusive and equitable, qualitative, available and free for all), as there are key points in delaying all this process, and these unannounced key points fall on the responsibility of the investigative press to reveal them.
Also He stressed the importance of employing investigative press to serve the education and its issues, as student bullying towards teachers is the most important hidden issue that the investigative journalist should look for, and the teachers' union may need it.
Dr. Ahmed Al-Hajaya, head of the Teachers’ Syndicate, also stressed the government’s role in ensuring the right to free, quality public education that takes into account diversity and differences, equity and inclusion. He stressed the importance of focusing on teachers’ rights and ensuring their dignity, and train them before and during service period because of its pivotal role in ensuring quality and equitable education.
Mrs. Fotouh Younis, Executive Director of the Arab Network for Civic Education-ANHRE, she said that on the initiative of the Arab Network for Civic Education-ANHRE, the Jordanian Coalition for Education was established in 2009 with the aim of reminding the government of its international obligations towards improving the quality of education and ensuring its openness to challenges and recognize, deal, and follow them up because education is The key to rights, and urging the government to give priority to spending on education and to raise the budget for the development of education.
Mr. Khalil Radwan, President of the Jordanian Coalition for Education, indicated that this event, which comes within the activities of the Global Action Week for Education 2019, it is the beginning of a training workshop for a group of journalists focusing on the right to quality education.
In the discussion session that was held entitled “The Role of Investigative press in Making the Right to Education General, Inclusive, Equitable, Quality and Free” real, the focus was on the role of investigative press and the forms of its influence in its political and social environment, and the coordination of democratic action in general, and its role in producing knowledge based on a scientific approach that made it a source reliable in the public domain. Where Mr. Ahmed Abu Khalil spoke about the generalization of education in Jordan, Mr. Musab al-Shawabkeh spoke about covering education issues in investigative press, then Ms. Heba Abu Taha spoke about the role of the media in highlighting on equitable education that respects women's rights.
In conclusion, the most important raised issues were commented and highlighted, issues which play a prominent role in making the right to education (public, inclusive, equitable, qualitative and free) real thing.
The attendees made several recommendations, most notably are:
- emphasizing that joint parallel work on all elements of the educational process, is major matter to reform the education.
- The necessity of engage the teachers in continuous training “during the service period” to ensure that they keep pace with developments and work to improve their physical, psychological and social conditions, this requires adopting a pre-service qualification and training approach for teachers
Furthermore it; Increasing the margin of spending on education in the light of the priorities of the new strategic plan of the Ministry of Education and the importance of shifting education from job description to professional description, and a comprehensive review of the Education Law to reach good quality education with its global specifications, and work on developing curricula towards humanizing education, so that educational institutions become places to transfer knowledge to Wisdom and promote a culture of dialogue, participatory and human rights and the implementation and activation of the right to education for people who have been deprived of education because of the wars that are still continuing in our region, or because of policies that deprive many of this right and focus on the need to work on making the school environment safe and attractive.