Thank you Chair,
I speak on behalf of Education International, the global federation of education trade unions with about 400 member organisations in 170 countries – representing around 32 million teachers, researchers and education support personnel.
We thank you for advancing the work around the Action Plan on Educational and Research Institutions and Persons with Other Disabilities and look forward to making normative progress on these agenda items which is so urgently needed.
Far too many teachers and researchers cannot make fair use of creative works for teaching and learning and we hope that WIPO as a specialised UN Agency will make its contribution to ensure that the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality and inclusive education becomes a reality for all.
I myself am a teacher by training and I am familiar with the day to day practices of preparing lessons, the search for the best picture, text snippet or piece of music that will help me to explain or get my students excited because I have chosen their favourite musician or cartoon character.
Language teachers know well how important it is to create authentic opportunities for language learning. This includes collaboration and exchange across borders where pictures, music videos and other creative works are exchanged and discussed with classmates and students from classrooms abroad.
Restrictive copyright regimes and, in fact, the lack of an international copyright instrument that addresses cross-border online collaboration and exchange does not empower teachers, ESP and researchers but creates barriers for them in their daily work.
For all these reasons EI endorsed TERA, a draft treaty on copyright exceptions and limitations for educational and research activities.
Building on the important work already done here in this Committee the treaty carefully balances the rights of creators and users and at the same time takes into account complex educational realities. It also addresses the gaps that only an international treaty can fill.
We hope that governments will discuss this text with us and our members from the different regions at the regional seminars and evaluate how a normative agenda at the SCCR can be advanced.
We do believe that a global commitment to making copyright work for education and research is essential and we look forward to supporting and contributing to this endeavour.
