Justin Tomlinson MP joined with Gary and Danielle Lineker at the Houses of Parliament this week to show support for the 1 GOAL campaign. Gary Lineker is an Ambassador for 1GOAL, an initiative which aims to mobilise support for education for all through the power of football.
During the World Cup Dani Lineker joined 1 GOAL on an education trip to Khayleitsha, one of the fastest growing townships in South Africa, where opportunities for children are very limited.
The parliamentary event was held to highlight the global education crisis at this critical time. Next week in New York (20 – 22 September) world leaders will be meeting to review progress on the UN Millennium Goals; 2 of the 8 goals involve tackling poverty by ensuring that all boys and girls complete primary schooling by 2015. With just 5 years to go there are still 72 million children who are being denied even a basic primary education.
The Global Campaign for Education, which organises 1GOAL, states that education is not only a human right but the fastest route out of poverty and says it is vital that the UK government must stand by its existing financial commitment of £1billion per year, until 2015, to support education internationally.
Gary Lineker said: "Delivering education for the 72 million children that are currently denied access to education is an achievable dream. We know that the world has the resources to deliver it. Now it's time for world leaders to make it happen - for rich countries to deliver the funding needed, and for governments of developing countries to ensure that education is the top priority in their country."
David Archer, International Board Member for the Global Campaign for Education said:
“This year 1 million pupils, in 9000 schools across the UK, joined the Global Campaign for Education’s 1GOAL Send My Friend to School campaign, linked to the World Cup, which focused on getting every child in the world into school. Pupils and teachers understand the importance of this issue. The UK government has already committed to keep up overall spending on aid but we need them to become a real champion by recommitting to the target of £1 billion in aid to education each year and by calling on other world leaders to put their hands up for education at the UN Summit next week”.
Justin Tomlinson MP said: “I have signed up to support this crucial campaign, as providing schooling vastly increase the opportunity for both the individual and the local community a way out of poverty. A huge amount of work has already been done and we must remain focused on reaching all children.”
The Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell MP, also attended the event.
Ronan McKenzie and Rhiannon Kruse Edwards, both 15, who won the Steve Sinnott Award to be the Young Global Education Ambassadors for 2010 were at the event to represent the 1 million schoolpupils that took part in the campaign this year. Ronan and Rhiannon travelled to Ghana earlier this year with the Global Campaign for Education and PLAN International to investigate the barriers to education there.