European Trade Union Committee for Education

On 3 to 5 August 2016 the Trade Union Committee of Education and Science Workers of Tajikistan organised a workshop on basic concepts of the trade union and its role in defending the rights of teachers. The workshop is a part of the EI/ETUCE Central Asia Consortium Project and took place in Istarafshan, Tajikistan.

The main aims of the workshop are to raise awareness on the issues of the education trade union’s internal work, leadership and administration, to discuss the challenges teachers, children and schools face in Tajikistan and to formulate possible solutions. It contributed to the Central Asia Consortium Project objective of promoting changes in the EI affiliate education trade unions in Central Asia to more democratic, independent and transparent organisations.

Another workshop, organised in Tajikistan in the framework of the EI/ETUCE Central Asia Consortium Project, tackles the problems of child labour. It took place on 7 to 9 August 2016 in Kurgantube and focused on the Kulyab district where children are engaged in cotton picking, brick laying in construction sites, pushing carts at the market place and vegetable farming.

The participants, including the oblast chairperson and some of his committee members, took a special interest in eliminating the child labour problem in the Khatlon oblast. Among other topics, the participants discussed the correlation of the school attendance to child labour and the role the local education trade union in reducing child labour.

At the end of each workshop an action plan was prepared to be implemented at the school and district levels with a view to strengthen local education trade unions and to realise the vision of Education for All.