Interview with David Edwards, General Secretary of the Education International

We spoke with David Edwards just three weeks before the opening of the congress of the Education International, which unites trade unions of teachers and other educational professionals.  The EI is one of the biggest global unions -- it has 383 member organisations, representing more than 32 million people in 178 countries and territories -- and faces immense challenges.  We spoke about the EI's current Go Public! campaign which has been fighting to get governments to invest in public education and hire more teachers.  But we also discussed the challenges teachers and their unions face every day in countries like Iran and Afghanistan.  We concluded with a discussion about the rise of the far Right, which is a concern for all teachers' unions.  And at the end of the interview -- this was unscripted, really -- David spoke briefly about the work the EI has done with LabourStart.