Church Backs Global Education Petition

Wednesday September 16

The Church of Scotland has released a promotional video calling on its 1400 congregations to back a petition to the United Nations calling on governments across the world to honour their promise to provide quality education for every child.
 
More than nine million people have signed the #UpForSchool petition so far. The petition, which is organised by the Global Faiths Coalition for Education, is being championed by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who will address the UN in New York next week.
 
The Moderator of the Church’s General Assembly, the Rt Rev Dr Angus Morrison, says he is backing the #SignUpSunday initiative because the Church was instrumental in the introduction of universal education in Scotland. Following the Reformation in 1560, one of the first decisions of the General Assembly was to establish a school in every parish.
 
Dr Morrison says congregations are: "Heirs to a rich tradition of support for the right of all children to education. The purpose was not only to enable everyone to read the Bible for themselves, but to give each child a solid start in life. In time that strategy led to the transformation of Scottish society.
 
"By signing the #UpForSchool petition now we can all make a significant contribution towards the goal of this being the first generation ever in which all the world’s children will be given a basic education, and thus receive their rightful start in life. I hope the videos will be shared by our members and the wider public on social media to get the message across.”
 
The Moderator is being joined by Gordon Brown and Hannah Mary Goodlad, Moderator of the Church’s National Youth Assembly, in launching the initiative. Miss Goodlad says people have a 'collective responsibility' to stand up for the 59 million children currently denied access to any schooling because education is 'life changing and life-saving'.
 
Mr Brown, whose father John was a Church of Scotland minister, was appointed United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education in 2012. He believes the issue is a “civil rights struggle” because even in those countries which do provide schooling, around 500 million children do not finish primary or secondary education.
 
Mr Brown will address the United Nations next Thursday, September 24, challenging it to meet the UN General Assembly’s pledge to provide quality education for all by this year. Addressing the recent gathering of Church’s National Youth Assembly he said “When I talk about education, I am talking about what we can do as citizens of the world to make it possible for every child to have the basic thing we take for granted - the right to a decent education that will give them a proper start in life. Let us be the first generation in history where we do bridge the gap between what people are and what they have within themselves to become by ensuring that they have universal education.”

Comments

Margaret Graham - Friday, September 18th, 2015

“I agree every child has the right to a proper education”

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