Text size

Jerry Glazier, Director of the Steve Sinnott Foundation

“The announcement of the Foundation’s online community on World Teachers Day 2009 is an exciting moment for us," said Jerry Glazier, Director of the Steve Sinnott Foundation. "This is a facility to bring the world’s teachers together in common cause for one of the most important projects of our times."

Uniting teachers in aid of universal primary education

7 October 2009

Secretariat hosts charity website launch uniting teachers globally in support of achieving universal primary education

A charity has launched their new community website – uniting teachers and educators globally in support of achieving universal primary education - at the Commonwealth Secretariat headquarters in London on World Teachers Day.

The event hosted by the Education Section of the Secretariat involved a Press Briefing in which the Steve Sinnott Foundation announced the new initiative for international teachers. The website aims to bring together teachers and educators worldwide through an international online community to promote the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 2 (MDG2) - to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

Using the new website, teachers across continents will be able to exchange their experiences and encourage each other in new and existing projects, to contribute to a growing bank of resources for use in promoting MDG2 and to unite in showing their support for a goal which should see 75 million more of the world’s children in primary education by 2015.

Foundation Director, Jerry Glazier said: “The announcement of the Foundation’s online community on World Teachers Day 2009 is an exciting moment for us. This is a facility to bring the world’s teachers together in common cause for one of the most important projects of our time.

“If the world’s governments can ensure the availability of education to all these children of this generation, the world is changed for the better for all future generations.”

World Teacher's Day

Click here for the message from Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma

Co-director, Graham Clayton said: “We know that teachers throughout the world have this dedication and commitment and if they have the opportunity to come together and unify we do believe we can change the world through MDG2.”

The Steve Sinnott Foundation was established in May, 2009, in honour of the late Steve Sinnott, the first convenor of the Commonwealth Teachers Group and former General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, who was passionate about achieving MDG2.

Mr Sinnott was closely associated with the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol, an ethical code of practice, which balances the rights of teachers to migrate internationally against the exploitation of scarce human resources in developing or low income countries. The research for the protocol formed the backdrop to recommendations at the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in June, 2009, to establish an Advisory Body on International Teacher Migration to monitor the mobility and recruitment of teachers within and beyond the Commonwealth.

The Secretariat also co-ordinates the Steve Sinnott Award for the Professional Development of Teachers which is presented every three years to a Commonwealth country which best demonstrates excellence in the professional development of Commonwealth teachers.