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I’m John Bangs. I’m Senior Consultant to Education International, with responsibility for working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. I’m Chair of the Trade Union Advisory Committee for Education at the OECD.
I’m also working very closely with the Cambridge University on teacher policies, i.e. how you promote the teaching profession.
The Conference that Education International is holding for OECD affiliates, those unions in OECD countries is a really important conference
and I’m really looking forward to it.
I think there’s a key underlying theme here, particularly in times of financial crisis,
and that is the public education itself is in crisis.
There are many governments that are wondering about how they can actually get outstanding results
for their children and young people in reduced circumstances.
That’s a big question hanging over the conference
And there are a number of governments that are tempted by the siren voices of those that can say:
we can do education systems much cheaper
if we cut out qualified teachers, if we take out the role of the professionals,
we can do it all on on-line, all on computers
and we can have untrained staff delivering that kind of education.
It would be totally wrong, and that particular attitude is being described
by a well-known Finnish academic, Pasi Sahlberg, as the GERM: Great Education Reform Movement.
Interestingly both the OECD and EI have the same view
that actually you cannot deliver high-quality, outstanding education
for all children and young people in your country
without the central involvement of the teaching profession,
and that means qualified teachers.
This conference comes at a point when very many teachers and their unions,
very many governments are beginning to ask themselves:
how can we deliver high quality education with quality teachers?
So the big debate for the conference is going to be:
how do we do that in a time of financial crisis.
It should be a very good and sharp debate indeed.