Canadian educators join global teacher unions' call to carve out education from Trans-Pacific Partnership

OTTAWA, Feb. 2, 2016 /CNW/ - Canadian organizations representing 268,000 K-12 as well as post-secondary educators across the country are adding their voices to the global teacher unions' call to their governments to carve out education from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Education International (EI) affiliate organizations in the 12 countries involved - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam - have written their governments demanding to carve education from the deal.

The Canadian letter signed by the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to the Minister of International Trade is posted here: http://www.ctf-fce.ca/en/news/Documents/2016/Education-and-the-TPP-Letter.pdf

A meeting with federal officials in Canada is expected mid- February.

The CTF and CAUT share EI's concerns about the potential impacts of the TPP for the education sector as there is no explicit exclusion of education, which exposes the sector to greater risks of privatization and commercialization and threatens free, public, high-quality education.

Teacher trade unions are making a final push to keep education off the table as the wide-reaching trade pact that covers 40 per cent of the global economy is expected to be signed Feb. 4, in Auckland New Zealand,

The CTF (http://www.ctf-fce.ca) is a national alliance of Member organizations representing nearly 200,000 teachers across Canada.

The CAUT (http://www.caut.ca/) is the national voice of 68,000 academic and general staff at more than 100 colleges and universities across the country.

As the largest professional federation, EI (http://www.ei-ie.org) represents 400 teacher organisations and unions in 171 countries with more than 32 million members.

SOURCE Canadian Teachers' Federation

Media contacts: Canadian Association of University Teachers: Angela Regnier, Communications Officer, [email protected] 613-726-5186; 613-601-6304 (cell).; Canadian Teachers' Federation: Francine Filion, Director of Communications [email protected] , 613-688-4314 or 613-899-4247 (cell); Education International: Andrew King, Media and Communications Coordinator at [email protected]