Politics, The Commonwealth and The Future of Education after Compulsory Schooling
Date: Wednesday 29 June 2016 | Time: 17:45 to 19:00, followed by a network reception with refreshments from 19:00 to 19:45
Venue: Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Room, Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster
Simon Hughes was one of the three Parliamentary Chairs of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth from 1989 to 2015 when he lost his Parliamentary seat. He succeeded David Alton (Liberal Democrat) as our Chair and has now been succeeded in turn by Mark Williams, the LD Member for Ceredigion.
Higher education and the challenge of the youth bulge for the Commonwealth: whither access and equity?
Date: 16 June 2016 | Time: 10:45 – 15:30 | Venue: The British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1 A2BN
This year’s Annual Conference will focus on the growing crisis in higher education provision across many Commonwealth countries, as countries struggle to meet the demand of the ever-increasing number of young people exiting secondary schools. The key areas that will be explored in relation to the challenges of access and equity include:
Appointment of Trustees for the Council for Education in the Commonwealth
The Board of Trustees are seeking individuals to join its existing Board. At a time of growth and development, we are looking for individuals with substantial expertise in any one or more of the following and we would like to hear from you:
Date: 26 May 2016 | Time: 18:00 to 20:00 | Venue: CPA UK, Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster Light refreshments will be served
To celebrate 25 years of Namibia’s independence and democracy, and to acknowledge this milestone, we are pleased to welcome Peter Katjavivi, Speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia, to present and discuss aspects of education and development in Namibia, since its independence from South Africa in 1990
Educating Nomadic & Pastoralist Children - where are we now?
Date: 4 May 2016 Time: 18:00 to 20:00 Venue: Palace of Westminster
Providing education to nomadic communities is one of the most challenging and urgent issues facing education policy makers and practitioners. Nomads constitute about six percent of the total population in Africa and are found in at least twenty African countries.
The Annual Commonwealth Day Westminster Seminar on Achieving an inclusive Commonwealth - what role for education? hosted by the Council for Education (CEC) in the Commonwealth’s was held at the Palace of Westminster on Monday, March 14, 2016. It was attended by nearly 200 people including several High Commissioners and their representatives.
The seminar takes its objective from this year’s Commonwealth theme of ‘An Inclusive Commonwealth’ and seeks to explore the dynamic inter-relationship between education, inclusion and equity.
The seminar will address the overall context and implications, from a variety of perspectives, and presenters will offer examples of interventions, concerning different types of marginalised groups, in which they have been involved.
Some of the challenges to be addressed include:
·Community based education - the implications for schools and systems;
·Education content for promoting inclusion;
·Education provision in conflict and post-conflict societies;
·Provision for young people with various disabilities and handicaps;
·Education for other groups who might lack access;
To reserve your place, please register now via Eventbrite HERE.
Dean Acheson famously said decades ago that Britain had lost an Empire but had not yet found a role.
The story of Britain and the Commonwealth and of Britain and the EU is a good illustration of that. The publicity for this evening suggests that there is for Britain today a choice: do we go with the numerically larger and faster growing Commonwealth or with the EU which, in relative terms, is economically less important than when we joined over 40 years ago?
So the Commonwealth and the EU is really the story of Britain, the Commonwealth and the EU. For, without Britain, Commonwealth interests would not have featured on the EEC/EU agenda and, without British membership of the EU it is questionable whether Britain would, in practice have been able to play the role we have at the heart of the modern Commonwealth.
Now, as when Britain was seeking to work out her place in the post war world, the question is: how do we see ourselves, how do we see our place in the world and how do we define and advance what we perceive as our national interest.
In 1945, as now, our Government was seeking two main things in the post-war world: security and prosperity. The fact that Britain then sought to secure those advantages on a global stage was not just a product of our Imperial history (which in 1945 was, just, still an Imperial present), or a sense of vindication and pride which, quite justifiably, we felt as one of the victorious powers – albeit one which had paid a very high price for ensuring its survival and that of much of the rest of Europe.
