'Education for all' campaign launched in Orissa

Posted by admin on June 8th, 2010

As part of the 1Goal global campaign coinciding with the FIFA Football World Cup 2010, hundreds of social activists, educationists, students and sportspersons have started a signature drive in Orissa, seeking education for all, a campaigner said Tuesday.

The drive was kicked off here Monday by international football player and former captain of Indian women football team, Sradhanjali Samantaray.

It would continue till June 22, Santosh K. Padhy of international NGO ActionAid told IANS.

The participants signed on an appeal that asks Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to increase budgetary allocations for elementary education, he said.

Around 100 organisations in the state have already joined the drive.‘We will collect signatures from people from all walks of life, starting from villages to premier educational institutes, and present it to the chief minister,’ Padhy said.

The drive is part of the 1Goal campaign launched globally coinciding with the FIFA Football World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

The campaign is backed by FIFA and some of the biggest names in football, he said.

The aim is to put pressure on governments around the world to deliver the additional money that is needed to pay for every child to attend school, he said.

1Goal is setting out to be the biggest campaign around a sporting event. It already has 100 ambassadors, 25 of the biggest mobile phone companies backing it and aims to get 72 million people signing up.

This support will then be used to encourage new commitments from governments attending the high-level summit that will be hosted by the South African government during the World Cup.

‘Although there has been significant increase in the budget of school and mass education during the last two years (2008-09 and 2009-10) in Orissa, it has been mostly because of the hike in the salary post Sixth Pay Commission recommendations,’ he said.

‘Now that education has become a fundamental right, there is a need for launching a massive campaign involving people to ensure its proper implementation,’ he said.