European Trade Union Committee for Education

On 22 January 2018, ETUCE held the first Advisory Group meeting in the new project “Social dialogue and gender equality: Empowering education trade unions to address gender equality in the teaching profession through social dialogue.” The project’s aim is to provide education trade unions with concrete tools and practices to address the challenges of gender inequality through enhanced social dialogue in the education sector at national, regional and local level.

This two-year project (2018 - 2019) is co-funded by the European Commission and seeks to update the existing ETUCE Action Plan on Gender Equality (2010) while promoting measures for its implementation. An online database of education trade unions’ good practices in improving gender equality in the teaching profession using social dialogue instruments will support education trade unions as a source of inspiration for the implementation of the ETUCE Action Plan. It will also serve as a practical manual of tools and arguments proven successful for promoting gender equality in the teaching profession and within trade unions.

The project advisory group includes representatives of ETUCE member organisations from Italy (UIL-Scuola), Romania (FSLE), Germany (VBE), Denmark (BUPL), France (SNUIPP), and Lithuania (FLESTU), who support the project activities with their expertise and knowledge. At the first meeting, the members of Advisory Group discussed project objectives, main activities, and expected outcomes.

The meeting was also an opportunity for the advisory group to meet the researchers accompanying the project and to prepare an online survey for ETUCE member organisations. The survey seeks to collect data on gender segregation and other gender-related challenges in the teaching profession and to identify trade unions’ good practices of tackling gender inequality in the education sector through different forms of social dialogue.

Besides the survey, project activities include three training workshops in Germany, Italy, and Lithuania where participants will have a chance to share successful examples of tackling gender inequality in the education sector and to discuss recommendations for the ETUCE Action Plan on Gender Equality. The project closing conference is to be held in Bucharest, Romania in 2019.

To find out more about the project, please, visit the project webpage.