On Wednesday 23^rd April, Reading West MP Martin Salter will be going back to school to back the Campaign for Global Education Day of Action.

Mr Salter has been invited to join Prospect Technology College’s special needs unit - The Bridge - who are taking part in a world record attempt to hold the World’s Biggest Lesson.  The lesson will discuss the need for education and the pledge from world leaders to give every child a primary education by 2015.  Students at The Bridge will also be using break time and lunch time for the school to come and design cards to be sent to Gordon Brown to remind him of this promise.

The aim of the World’s Biggest Lesson is to unite millions of children, teachers, parents and campaigners in over 100 countries, as they carry out a world record breaking attempt.  Pupils will be teaching their politicians, officials and government representatives and journalists one of the most important lessons of their life about human rights, justice and responsibility. 

Currently 72 million children, of primary school age, have never been to school.  Instead they work in factories, on farms, care for their sick parents and work to survive by other means.  For those fortunate to make it to school, millions struggle to learn, as they share teachers with up to 100 other students, have few or no textbooks, and receive only a few hours teaching a day.  A lack of quality education for everyone has resulted in 774 million adults not being able to read and write.   The Global Campaign for Education is calling upon all governments to invest and commit in Quality Education to End Exclusion. 

At the halfway point to the 2015 target, the UK gives three times as much as the US - and UK has pledged to donate £8.5bn from 2006-15.

On Monday the Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged his support to the Global Campaign for Education’s action week saying  that 2008 “must be a year of action” if the 2015 target is to be met. He said that education is a “moral issue” as well as an economic one and spoke of his desire to be part of the first generation to ensure that all children have a chance to go to school.   Mr Brown pledged to push the issue of universal education at the EU summit in June and also the G8 summit to be held in Japan in July.

Martin Salter said:

“It is important to encourage and support young people who want to make a public statement of support and solidarity for their fellow school children across the world who are denied access to the type and standard of schooling that we have come to expect here in Britain and the rest of the developed countries. I am proud of the part the Labour government has promised to play to provide all children with schooling by 2015 but we must keep up the pressure particularly on those countries who are still to meet their commitments.”