Edinburgh 2003: closing the gap or enforcing the divisions? The 15th CCEM 27 - 30 October 2003

It is more than 40 years since Commonwealth education ministers began the series of triennial meetings that has evolved into the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM). Launched in a period of international optimism, the ministers who gathered in Oxford in 1959 considered the prospects for the sharing of knowledge and experience across the emerging Commonwealth in a collegiate and non-contentious manner. In contrast the 15th CCEM, held in Edinburgh in late October 2003, was less consensual, more abrasive and factional, reflecting the international divisions between developed and developing world after the collapse of the international trade talks in Cancun. The impatience of member states from the developing countries with the lack of commitment to speedy solutions to their concerns from developed countries was obvious. Issues such as the systematic poaching of teachers - often trained with aid money - by developed nations and the Commonwealth's status on the inclusion of education within the World Trade Organization General Agreement on Trade in Services highlighted the differences. In the end there was consensus of sorts, but built around compromise rather than harmony. Reprinted by permission of Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis Ltd.