Launched in October 1999, The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is an effort to improve education worldwide on the part of civil society organisations, NGOs, child rights activists, teachers, and public sector unions operating in 180 countries. ActionAid, Education International, Oxfam International, and the Global March Against Child Labour launched the effort. The campaign promotes education as a basic human right, and mobilises public pressure on governments and the international community to fulfill their promises to provide free, compulsory public basic education for all people (especially children, women, and other disadvantaged or deprived citizens). Other goals include:

• Increased provision of high-quality early childhood education and care;
• Increased public expenditure dedicated to basic education and new resources through aid and debt relief for the poorest countries;
• An end to child labour;
• Democratic participation of, and accountability to, civil society, including teachers and their unions, in decision making about education at all levels;
• Reform to ensure that policies support rather than undermine free, high-quality public basic education;
• Fair salaries for teachers, properly equipped classrooms, and a supply of high-quality textbooks;
• Inclusive and non-discriminatory provision of services for all.

Main Communication Strategies
Advocacy is GCE's central approach. GCE actively encourages and supports the formation of national platforms that bring together community groups, unions, education NGOs, religious and youth organisations, and other stakeholders to create broad-based citizen pressure supportive of education-oriented goals.

In 2002, organisations in 90 countries around the world organised local events as part of the GCE's annual Global Action Week. Wealthy nations were asked to provide the aid and debt relief needed to make free, quality education for all a reality. People took to the streets and the airwaves to send this message to governments and the international community: every girl and boy must be free to learn. In addition, online action cards were designed as part of an effort to ask governments to do more to deliver free, quality education. Children's drawings were also collected.

The GCE site provides links to monthly updates on new global developments occuring as part of the 2003 campaign, which will take place from April 6-13, 2003. Leaflets, posters, stickers, and a flyer are available (in English, Spanish, and French) for download on the GEC 2003 site. This campaign calls on world leaders to ensure access on the part of women and girls to education. On April 9, 2003, GCE will try to set a new world record for the largest number of people learning the same thing at the same time.