In the Jubilee Room on Wednesday 27th April, members of the APPG participated in the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and re-elected members. The APPG Global Education is delighted to welcome our new Co-Chair Yasmin Qureshi MP who will lead the APPG alongside fellow Co-Chair, Harriett Baldwin MP. We are also pleased to welcome Baroness Christine Blower as our new Vice-Chair, alongside the re-election of Chris Matheson MP, Mike Wood MP, Lord German, Lord Low, Baroness Sugg, Lord McConnell and Marion Fellows MP as Vice-Chairs.
Following on from the AGM, the APPG collaborated with civil society organisations from the Send My Friend (SMF) Coalition (Save the Children UK, the National Education Union, Plan International UK and RESULTS UK) to celebrate the launch of SMF’s latest report, ‘All My Friends Need Teachers’. Parliamentarians were joined in the Jubilee Room by FCDO Minister, Vicky Ford MP, and Send My Friend Campaign Champions Daniel and Evie from Sir John Lawes Secondary School in Harpenden. In what was a hybrid event format, we were also joined by Dennis Sinyolo, Africa Director of Education International, and Teopista Birungi Mayanja, chairperson and co-founder of the Trustees Board of the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU), who dialled in from Ghana and Uganda respectively.
‘All My Friends Need Teachers’ focuses upon the role and significance of teachers in achieving the UK’s commitments to global education. Investing in qualified, well-trained, and well-resourced teachers is one of the greatest investments we can make in children’s futures. However, as the event considered, children in low- and lower-middle income countries are too often taught by under-trained and inadequately supported teachers, while acute teacher shortages mean that large class sizes stymie learning.
After hearing from each of the speakers, the APPG, Minister Ford and the audience discussed in further detail the scale of the challenges facing teachers and school systems around the world and the UK’s role in alleviating them. Here are a selection of key quotes from the speakers:
“Education recovery begins with teachers; the UK must support teachers to support children’s education… Without quality teachers, there is no quality learning” – Dennis Sinyolo
“There is a huge lack of women teachers in rural areas for reasons including safety issues. This means some teachers face class sizes of over 100 in Uganda” – Teopista Birungi Mayanja.
“We know that 9 in 10 children in the world’s lowest income countries cannot read by the age of 10, yet the inverse is true in the richest countries. The UK Government is determined to address this” – Minister Vicky Ford MP
The APPG Global Education, would like to extend its sincere thanks to Dennis Sinyolo, Teopista Birungi Mayanja, Minister Vicky Ford MP, Daniel and Evie, and all of the audience for joining us in parliament for the report launch. It was a joy to return to holding in-person APPG on Global Education events!