Investing in education: ETUCE Training Seminar in Vilnius
Published:
On 5 and 6 September, the second training seminar of the current project “Investing in Education: Strengthening the involvement of teacher trade unions in the European Semester on education and training” was carried out successfully in Vilnius, Lithuania. Teacher trade unions’ representatives from the Baltic, Central and Eastern, Northern and Anglo-Saxon European regions met to acquire specific knowledge on the European Semester on education and training, to discuss the effects of the European Semester on education reforms and investments, as well as to set strategies to influence the process both at national and at European level. The Training Seminar was organised in cooperation with FLESTU (Lithuanian Education Employees Trade Union).
Since its inception, in 2011, the European Semester has been increasingly influencing education policies and reforms within the EU and beyond. Moreover, European member states have been encouraged to look for other ways to finance their education and training systems. The project expert, University of Nottingham stressed the link between increasing privatisation trends and fiscal surveillance policies in the framework of the European Semester in the course of the session “Impact of the Semester on public spending. A pathway to privatisation?”. Participants shared experience and discussed the effects of the Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) on education and training on the current education reforms in their countries and on the work of teachers. They shared trade unions’ priorities and outlined strategies to take actions during the various steps of the European Semester. Participants learned national teacher unions’ strategies and actions on the European Semester from ETUCE member organisations in Denmark (DLF, project co-applicant) and Lithuania (FLESTU).
In the course of the event, Mr Jonas Rasimas, Economic Governance Officer of the European Commission in Lithuania, explained the actors and timeline of the European Semester, including consultation and negotiation processes with national social partners and stakeholders. Mr Ricardas Alisauskas, from the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, highlighted the diverse approach on the design and implementation of reforms triggered by CSRs on education and training between the Education ministry and the Ministry of Finance. ETUCE president Christine Blower highlighted the importance of the training activity aimed at raising awareness and at encouraging teacher unions to intervene more actively in the European Semester process in order to secure policy outcomes in education and sustainable investments. She welcomed the keynote speech given by the Minister of Education of Lithuania, Ms Audronė Pitrėnienė.
Within this project, two more seminars are going to take place in Rome, Italy (20-21 October) and in Ljubljana, Slovenia in January 2017.
The trainings will be organized in cooperation with DLF (Danish Union of Teachers), FLC CGIL (Trade Union Federation for Education of CGIL) and ESTUS (Education and Science Trade Union of Slovenia). Aware that one seize does not fit all, and that many national specificities have to be taken into consideration, participants to the ETUCE training are now eager to develop their national strategy to influence the European Semester on education and training.