Teacher training is a crucial matter of social dialogue in the education sector
Published:
At the ETUCE Conference ‘Strengthening the capacity of education trade unions to represent teachers’ professional needs in social dialogue” held in Brussels on 19-20 September 2018, ETUCE member organisations expressed their commitment to ensuring that teachers are provided with a wide range of a high quality initial and continuous professional training opportunities, as well as with an adequate early career support.
The Conference has concluded a 2-year long ETUCE project “Education Trade Unions for the Teaching Profession. Strengthening the capacity of education trade unions to represent teachers’ professional needs in social dialogue” co-funded by the European Commission. The project seeks to build the capacity of education trade unions to represent teachers’ professional needs in all education sectors and to enhance their professional issues as a crucial matter of social dialogue. The main findings and outcomes of the project have been collected in a research report by Howard Stevenson from Nottingham University based on the survey conducted among ETUCE member organisations.
Following the ETUCE Public Hearing on ‘Supporting teachers in the European Education Area 2025: The role of education trade unions in meeting teachers’ on 19 September, education trade unions representatives from 29 countries of the European region discussed challenges in representing teachers’ professional needs in social dialogue and beyond and their possible solutions. Speakers from NEU-NUT (UK), DOE (Greece), and EEPU (Estonia), pointed out such problems as the lack of social dialogue and collective bargaining on teachers’ professional issues, fragmented system and insufficient public funding of teacher training, as well as inadequate teacher’s evaluation schemes.
Speakers from BUPL (Denmark), TUS (Serbia), and PODKREPA (Bulgaria) shared some best examples of representing teachers’ professional needs such as providing the accredited continuous professional development to teachers, funding and conducted research on teachers’ professional needs, and negotiating with the Ministry on national qualifications for teacher education.
Smaller working groups provided space and time for Conference participants to discuss and validate the draft practical guidelines for Education Trade Unions on ‘How to represent effectively teachers’ professional needs within the unions’ capacity and social dialogue structures’.
Please find the speakers’ presentations here:
Emmanouil Androulakis, DOE, Greece
Georgi Shoshev, PODKREPA, Bulgaria
Please find the project research report here.
Please find the pictures from the Conference here.