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GEO/ICAE
Content
1.- Best wishes from ICAE
3. - Increasingly Desperate Times as 700,000 Adults are lost to Learning 4. - Announcing the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development 5.- Global Campaign for Education issues verdict statement on the education for all high level group 6. - Female Migration Increases and Spurs Development, Shows World Bank Research
7. - The Business of
Governance
1. - Best wishes from ICAE
May the new year
bring renewed hopes and energy to pursue our goals and dreams
2.- Conference Statement and Report on The Right to Education in the Context of Migration and Integration
More than two hundred participants from about fifty countries came together in Bonn from 15 to 16 November 2007 to inform each other and search for ways to cooperate closer in the future in the complex and diverse field of migration and integration through adult education.
The main goal was to create a forum to exchange ideas and experiences about the challenges of migration processes for European and international cooperation in the field of adult education, their contributions towards the development of civil societies, and concerning the integration processes in the countries of immigration.
Organisers and conference context
The conference had as main partners the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA), and the German Adult Education Association (DVV), representing the global, European and national dimensions. The conference benefited from a wide range of sponsors, including German Ministries, and especially TELC, the European Language Certificates company. The Deutsche Welle served as Media partner. The conference was jointly planned and organized by dvv international.
Participants represented the rich background of professional associations, non-governmental and community based organisations, governments, and universities. Aspects of gender mainstreaming were strongly featured in the different thematic keynotes, forums, and workshops.
International participants appreciated to be especially informed on recent developments of adult education and integration policy and practice in Germany, which deals with a wide range of social, cultural and educational issues. It contributed to an understanding that we all have to learn from each other. And vice versa, European and German participants could learn much form the global perspectives which were introduced by colleagues from African, Asian and Latin American countries.
The presentation of different concepts of education in international cooperation seeks to contribute to a change in perspective – to view migration more as a chance than a threat. As the Global Commission on International Migration put it: it is a transnational phenomenom and migration and integration must be regarded as two sides of the same coin. The impact of this on development aid and cooperation must be explored further.
The Right to Learn!
Learning societies of today need lifelong learning , and they need structures to support learning, education and training throughout the lifetime, while you are a child, as younger or older adult, be it informal, non-formal or formal. However, the diversity of adult education cultures in the different countries and regions were recognized, and approaches of intercultural learning discussed.
In much detail the participants analysed experiences in language learning. It was seen as a key to integration and participation. The assessment and testing of language competences was looked at as a criterion for immigration. Are the diversity and the plurality of languages of immigrants a potential or a threat? What can adult education do to enhance a multilingual society? And what can adult education do to open the receiving society interculturally?
In a second forum the right to education, learning and training as a foundation for equal rights of migrants in integration and participation was looked at. The recognition of formal and non-formal qualifications of migrants in the host countries, and their further up-grading within processes of lifelong learning for all is of great importance. How can host countries appreciate diversity and create space for political participation for people with a migration background. What are the conditions to guarantee access, availability, acceptability and adaptability of education to especially vulnerable and silent groups such as migrant women and young refugees.
The forum on migration and development looked at the educational needs of migrants. What can adult education do before emigration, and after arrival in the new country? How can the work include all members of the families? Who are the important actors in this process? As one of the key aspects, the discussion centred around issues of brain drain, brain gain, and brain circulation – who gains from migration? On the other hand, there is a clear indication that the money transfer of migrants to their home countries exceeds the development aid flows in many countries. Finally, in this forum, the educational needs in processes of internal migration were analysed. The Way Ahead
In planning and implementing this event, the organisers built on recent and follow-up meetings of adult educators like the DVV Berlin convention “Learn Something New – Shape the Future – Bring People Together” in May 2006, the ICAE World Assembly on “Adults´ Right to Learn: Convergence, Solidarity and Action” in January 2007, and the EAEA conference on “Equal Opportunities for All – the Value of Adult Learning Promoting Equality” in December 2007. Additionally, they saw themselves on the way towards a major forthcoming event: UNESCO`s world conference on adult education CONFINTEA VI in 2009 in Brazil, which has all its regional preparatory conferences in 2008 already, and where issues of adult education in migration and integration will play an important role.
ICAE, EAEA and DVV and the participants of this conference on migration and integration will try to ensure that the most pressing and urgent issues of poverty reduction and social inclusion - and the crucial role adult education has to play in all these areas through civic education and skills training as well as literacy and basic education shall be treated with more professionalism and solidarity in the future. The conference strengthened the foundations for all these processes. It increased capacities and the motivation of the participants to get further involved – and involve others.
More information on the content and results of the conference can be found on www.migrationandintegration.de . The organisers are on www.icae.uy.org, www.eaea.org, www.dvv-vhs.de , www.dvv-international.de and www.telc.net .
3.- Increasingly Desperate Times as 700,000 Adults are lost to Learning
http://www.niace.org.uk/news/PressReleases/PR52.07.pdf
Press Release 20th December 2007 PR52/07
INCREASINGLY DESPERATE TIMES AS 700,000 ADULTS ARE LOST TO LEARNING According to the latest figures released by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in the Statistical First Release, 700,000 learners have been lost to publicly-funded adulteducation in the last year. This now means that in just 2 years there has been a fall of 1,400,000 adult learners.
Alan Tuckett, Director of NIACE, said, “How much further does the Government think we can afford to go? These are increasingly desperate times for adult education. It is of course the Government’s prerogative to set priorities and the modest gains in workplace learning highlighted here are welcome. But the loss of 1,400,000 learners from publicly-funded adult education in just 2 years comes at a very high price for social cohesion, for community well-being and for older people in particular, for civic engagement.“ He ended, “There is, after all, more to life than work and adult learning can play a part in supporting people’s aspirations and curiosities across the full span of social policy concerns. But it’s not a role it can play if those opportunities are dwindling drastically”.
For further information please contact: Ed Melia, NIACE Press Officer, on 0116 204 4248 or 07795 358 870.
Notes to Editors 1. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is the leading non-government organisation for lifelong learning in England, and exists to encourage more and different adults to engage in better-quality learning of all kinds and campaigns for, and celebrates the achievements of, all adult learners.
4.- Announcing the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development
http://portal.unesco.org/education/
21-12-2007 - UNESCO’s Director-General and Assistant Director-General for Education have announced that the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development – Moving into the Second Half of the UN Decade” will be held in Bonn, Germany, from 31 March to 2 April 2009. Some 700 stakeholders from all over the world will attend the conference, which is being organized by UNESCO and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in cooperation with the German Commission for UNESCO.
Contact: esddecade@unesco.org
5.- GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR EDUCATION ISSUES VERDICT STATEMENT ON THE EDUCATION
FOR ALL HIGH LEVEL GROUP http://www.campaignforeducation.org/news/news.html
COMMUNIQUE:
GCE President 6.- Female Migration Increases and Spurs Development, Shows World Bank Research
Press Release No: 2008/120/PREM
Contacts: In Washington: Alejandra Viveros (202)473-4306
WASHINGTON, November 26, 2007 Women make up almost half the migrant population in the world and their numbers are increasing, according to a new World Bank report released today. "The fact that women now account for almost half the total migrant population is having enormous effects on development," says Andrew Morrison, lead economist at the World Bank's Gender Group. "Women are sending lots of money to their families back home, and evidence from rural Mexico shows that their migration leads to positive economic effects for the homes they leave behind." Between 1960 and 2005, the percentage of international migrants who are women increased by almost 3 percentage points from 46.7 percent to 49.6 percent, to a total number of approximately 95 million women, according to the new World Bank volume, The International Migration of Women, edited by economists Andrew R. Morrison, Maurice Schiff, and Mirja Sjöblom. The number of female migrants is larger than that of male migrants in the former Soviet Union (58 percent and rising), is about equal and rising in Europe, Oceania, and Latin America and the Caribbean, is equal and steady in North America, and is smaller in Africa (47 percent and rising) and Asia (43 percent and falling). "The share of women migrating for employment rather than family reasons has increased over time, though their performance in host countries' labor markets varies significantly according to country of origin," Maurice Schiff, World Bank lead economist at the Development Research Group. Women migrants working in the U.S. who hail from the Caribbean, East Asia, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa have higher labor force participation than those from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Among women migrants educated in their home countries, those from Ireland, Australia and the UK make the most money. Among developing countries, women from South Africa, Jamaica and India have the highest salaries while those from Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba are the least successful, highlighting the importance of language skills for labor market performance. The study also shows that U.S.-educated women migrants earn more than those educated at home. The International Migration of Women also finds that increased border expenditures in the United States significantly deter migration by Mexican women, but not by Mexican men. This is likely because the cost of illegal migration is greater for women than for men because women are more vulnerable to abuse while migrating. "One of the most important messages of this book is that migration studies can no longer ignore women migrants," says Mirja Sjöblom, co-editor of the volume. "This is a fascinating research area because we are still missing important pieces of the puzzle. For example, we need to know more about the differential impact of male and female migration on family cohesion and children's welfare, as well as why certain households prefer female rather than male migration." In order to increase the positive effects of women migration on development, the study recommends: · Developing mechanisms to increase women's ability to influence the allocation of household expenditure. This is especially important for migrant women sending remittances, since they are likely to want to spend more on children's education; · Expanding temporary migration opportunities for women through Mode IV (*) guest worker and other mechanisms; and
· Allocating significant resources to collecting and analyzing new sex-disaggregated migration statistics, which will inform next-generation migration policy.
(*) Mode IV of the General Agreement on Trade and Services entails the temporary movement of persons employed by foreign firms in order to provide services to the host country.
The study and related materials are available at: www.worldbank.org/womenmigration 7.- The Business of Governancehttp://www.socialwatch.org/en/noticias/noticia_240.htm
Leonor Magtolis Briones
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