Media Advisory - Canada Hosts the 5th International Summit on the Teaching Profession

TORONTO, March 19, 2015 /CNW/ - The 5^th International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP 2015) will take place March 29 and 30 in Banff, Alberta.

This is the first time that the summit has been held in Canada. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), and The Learning Partnership are hosting the event in partnership with OECD and Education International.

ISTP has emerged as one of the most important forums in the world for dialogue on education transformation. It brings together education ministers and leaders of teachers' unions and associations from countries and regions with high-performing and rapidly improving education systems to discuss education policy and practice and the teaching profession. Individual teachers, education experts, and a variety of Canadian education stakeholders will also be in attendance.

Of particular interest to media:

• Dozens of education ministers, teachers' union leaders, and special guests from Canada and around the world will be in attendance, including:
  • Gordon Dirks, Chair of CMEC and Minister of Education, Alberta
  • Dianne Woloschuk, President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
  • Hekia Parata, Minister of Education, New Zealand (host of the 2014 summit)
  • Arne Duncan, United States Secretary of Education
  • Krista Kiuru, Minister of Education and Science, Finland
  • Hao Ping, Vice Minister of Education, Peoples' Republic of China
  • Stefan Kapferer, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD

• Key sessions will be facilitated by a number of world-renowned education experts, including:
  • Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills, OECD
  • Michael Fullan, OC, Education adviser to the Premier and the Minister of Education of Ontario
  • Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University

• Accredited media will have full access to all summit sessions.

About CMEC
Founded in 1967, CMEC is the collective voice of Canada's ministers of education. It provides leadership in education at the pan-Canadian and international levels and contributes to the exercise of the exclusive jurisdiction of provinces and territories over education. For more information, visit us at www.cmec.ca.

About The Learning Partnership
The Learning Partnership is a national charity dedicated to building stakeholder partnerships to support, promote, and advance publicly funded education in Canada. We do this through five key deliverables — innovative student programs, executive leadership for educators, knowledge mobilization and policy, tribute celebrations of excellence, and ongoing collaborations across Canada. Since 1993, more than 5.7 million students have participated in The Learning Partnership's programs. For more information on The Learning Partnership, visit www.thelearningpartnership.ca.

SOURCE Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

Visit the summit Web site at www.istp2015.org for more information or contact: Colin Bailey, Director, Communications, CMEC, Cell: 416-938-1911, Tel.: [phone], ext. 259, E-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @CCMEC; Michael Cooper, Director, Development and Government Relations, The Learning Partnership, Cell: 416-440-5127, E-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @TLPCanada