Prominent UK figures join the fight against cuts to international education
Numerous influential personalities have signed a letter to the UK Prime Minister urging him to step back from cuts to global girls’ education programmes including Malala, Annie Lennox, and Myleene Klass.
Malala, Annie Lennox OBE and Myleene Klass, along with others have signed an open letter to UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer urging him “not to step back” from supporting girls’ education around the world.
The publication adds to mounting pressure, including from members of parliament, on the government to affirm the UK’s support for global education.
Dozens of influential voices including well-known musicians, writers, and political figures have written to the UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, urging the government not to abandon educating the world’s children as part of a £6 billion reduction to overseas aid by 2027.
The letter, signed by Malala, Annie Lennox OBE, and Myleene Klass MBE among many others, shows the pressure the government is under to protect education.
In it, actors, creatives, and entrepreneurs point out the conflict between the PM’s promise to put the UK “back on the world stage” and the devastating consequences of the aid cuts to female students around the world.
“Education is not a luxury — it’s a lifeline,” the letter reads. “We urge you, Prime Minister, not to step back now.”
The high-profile public plea follows an editorial written by the co-chairs of the APPG on global education, Bambos Charambolous MP and Lord Michael German, in which they passionately argue against the UK abandoning its commitment to global education.
The co-chairs also led a cross-party group of over 20 MPs in writing to Development Minister Baroness Jenny Chapman with the same message.
The UK recently slashed its overseas aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of Gross National Income, representing an approximate £6 billion reduction by 2027 and imperilling programmes such as the UK-founded Girls Education Challenge which has transformed the lives of 1.6m marginalised girls across 17 countries.
Opposition to the cuts and alarm at their impact on education around the globe has grown since the Minister for International Development, Baroness Chapman, appeared before the International Development Committee on 13 May to announce that UK support for education would be deprioritised.
Around the same time, the UK hosted the world’s largest annual gathering of education and skills ministers, the Education World Forum (EWF), 18-21 May.
The hosting of EWF is testament to the UK’s outsize influence and reputation in global education and the event was protested by a coalition of partners to bring home the message that “Aid cuts = empty classrooms.”
With non-profits, the parliamentary group, MPs, and now some of the UK’s best-known figures coming out so strongly against the cuts, the time is right to continue applying pressure to the Government in Westminster.
