European Trade Union Committee for Education

Solidarity is the cornerstone of the education trade union movement and lays the ground for its unity. In cooperation with the EI head office, the ETUCE member organisations and other European organisations, the ETUCE Secretariat provides support to the member organisations requesting intervention. Depending on the nature of the objectives, the ETUCE Secretariat performs different forms of solidarity work. In cases of emergency or immediate intervention, ETUCE writes protest letters addressed to the social partners, the government or other institutions to support the pressure that member organisations exert at national level.

• Educators around the world stand with the people of Ukraine and condemn Russia’s act of war
• Support from Member Organisations
• European Commission’s initiatives
• Other Initiatives

Following the military invasion by the Russian Federation on the Ukraine, that started on the 24 February 2022, almost 3.7 million refugees have fled Ukraine majority of them being women and children. While there have been an unprecedented mobilisation of support for Ukrainian refugees at the national level in all European countries, especially in the ones neighboring Ukraine (education trade unions being very active in this process), the European Commission also mobilised its programmes and policy tools to support Ukrainian children and teachers, and those of the hosting countries. It has set up an EU Education Solidarity Group for Ukraine (under the European Education Area cooperation framework) and has been publishing Statements, Recommendations and Policy Guidelines for Member States, adapting funding programmes, organising focus sessions with education stakeholders, and employing the School Education Gateway as a central hub to access information and resources about the Ukrainian education system and integration of Ukrainian refugees.

Following the Statement by President von der Leyen on further measures to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, published on the 3 March 2022 a Statement on Students, Young People, Education Community, demanding that ‘Ukrainian students abroad are offered support adjusted to their needs and their safety would be guaranteed’. The European Commission's Communication "Welcoming those fleeing war in Ukraine: Readying Europe to meet the needs" includes comprehensive chapters on access to education and access to jobs. Acting on the proposals outlined in the Communication, the European Commission published Policy guidance on supporting inclusion of Ukrainian refugees in education and a Recommendation on the recognition of academic and professional qualifications for people fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine which provides Member States' authorities with guidance and practical advice to ensure a quick, fair and flexible recognition process.

In the end of June 2022, European Commission has published practical guidelines for EU Member States 'Supporting the inclusion of displaced children from Ukraine in education: considerations, key principles and practices for the school year 2022-2023' (https://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/resources/publications/practical-manual-on-refugees.htm). It was written by the Commission services in consultation with the UNHCR, UNICEF, NESET, representatives of ministries of education, and stakeholder organisations that met in peer learning events between March and June 2022.

The document highlights the importance of strong social dialogue in education and offers a set of considerations on six key areas, ranging from reception of displaced children to long-term measures:

1. organising reception and admission processes;
2. preparing education institutions and educational staff to include displaced children;
3. running targeted activities to help include displaced children in education;
4. engaging with displaced families and communities and helping displaced children maintain the link with Ukraine;
5. taking long-term measures to promote inclusive education;
6. taking specific measures for early childhood education and care.

Following up on another promise - to help Member States to use EU funds quickly and flexibly – the European institutions have adapted various funding calls and programmes both for national governments and for individuals:

• The European Commission has launched a special call under the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) to support Member States welcoming refugees from Ukraine and the phasing out of their reliance on fossil fuels from Russia;
• On 4 April 2022, the Council of the EU adopted the CARE initiative, introducing “legislative amendments making it possible for member states to redirect resources from cohesion policy funds and the Fund for European Aid for the Most Deprived (FEAD) to assist the refugees escaping the Russian military aggression against Ukraine”;
• The European Commission has made a decision to open Erasmus+ programme to pupils, VET learners, adult learners, teachers, trainers and other educational personnel from Ukraine. They will have an opportunity to spend a period at a hosting school, VET organisation or adult education organisation, or to complete a traineeship in EU Member States and third countries associated to the Erasmus+ Programme. Concretely, this means that Schools (including initial VET) and other organisations with ongoing Erasmus+ projects will be able to host Ukrainian teachers, other educational staff, pupils and learners and students to carry out teaching assignments, studies or traineeships. The newly opened activities will also be available for all Ukrainian teachers and other education staff, as well as pupils of school age (and initial vocational education and training) who were enrolled in an educational programme at the time of fleeing Ukraine. 
• Any participants in the Erasmus+ programmes coming from the Ukrainian education system (pupils, VET learners, teachers and other educational staff) will have free access to the open access part of the new Online Language Support platform foreseen to be launched on 1 July 2022. This will grant them access to basic language training in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian at a beginner level.

Furthermore, the European Commission focused on providing information and resources about the Ukrainian education system and to inform refugees about their rights. The EU publications office has released a website a website in English, Ukrainian and Russian for refugees and published a practical leaflet with pictogrammes in Ukrainian and many European languages, that can help host families, teachers and students to communicate with Ukrainian refugees. The central hub of resources for integration of Ukrainian refugees in education is the School Education Gateway which has a dedicated page and regularly updates its articles. Some examples include:

• A dedicated article on online educational resources in Ukrainian which is being regularly updated not only with material from Ukraine, but also with teaching material in Ukrainian language coming from EU Member States (e.g. Estonia, Poland and Romania).
• Background on the Ukrainian education system since 2016
• Inclusion of young refugees and migrants through education (schooleducationgateway.eu) (a republishing of the ET 2020 Working Group output), protection education from attack, and a practice article of how schools can react and show solidarity
• Next in line are articles on refugee education including ECEC, a tutorial on lessons learnt on history teaching from past wars in Europe, information on the education system in Ukraine, and the compendium of inspiring practices on inclusive and citizenship education

Moreover, eTwinning platform which offers a space for educational staff to communicate, collaborate, and develop projects, is launching a new grassroots group to share and coordinate community-driven solidarity activities and emotional support for Ukrainian educational personnel. The platform also extended their featured group ‘Integrating Migrants and Refugees at School’ to strengthen teachers supporting refugees.

Last but not least, the European Commission is actively consulting experts and stakeholders in education involved in Working Groups of the European Education Area strategic framework, including the Working groups on Schools - Sub-group on Pathways to School Success, Early childhood education and care, Digital education: Learning, training and assessment, and Equality and values in education and training. The following focus sessions were organised for example in April:

• Focus session on 'Teachers for refugee students', 4 April 2022
• DG EAC online webinar “Online Training for Fast-track Recognition of Ukrainian Academic Qualifications”, 6 April 2022;
• DELTA (Digital Education) Working Group ad-hoc meeting in response of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, which focused on exchanging current practices and needs in the provision of digital education solutions to support refugee Ukrainian pupils and students, 12 April 2022;
• Webinar “Supporting the mental health and well-being of refugee children in school”, 22 April 2022;
• ECEC Working Group meeting dedicated to ECEC staff: Recruiting Ukrainian staff in ECEC settings across Europe and Supporting ECEC staff across Europe to provide care and education to young refugee children, 22 April 2022;
• Focus session, “Ukrainian refugee children not (yet) attending school in the host countries – outreach, support and coordination with Ukrainian curriculum", 25 April 2022;
• Working Group on Equality and Values meeting on “Confronting some of the educational challenges in relation to the invasion of Ukraine” (focusing on how to talk to children about the war, media literacy and developing resilience to an on-line abuse and disinformation, history teaching – education about conflict and war, peace), 28 April 2022;
• Webinar on welcoming refugees in schools (6 May 2022);
• Webinar on teacher training for inclusion (13 May 2022);
• Professional development course for teachers on the integration of newly arrived refugees (May 2022)
• Professional development course for teachers on engaging non-native language speakers (June 2022);

ELA activities related to displaced persons coming from Ukraine seek to support the Member States in protecting them from the risk of undeclared work or exploitation in the workplace. Against this background, ELA’s activities have been organised around the following pillars: 

• Facilitating access to relevant information 
• Preventing labour exploitation and tackling undeclared work 

Main activities undertaken

• The EU Talent Pool Pilot is a job-searching online tool for people fleeing the war in Ukraine who are looking for a job in the EU. It helps to identify and map their skills and facilitates their matching with EU employers. All jobseekers benefiting from temporary protection under the EU Temporary Protection Directive, or adequate protection under national law providing them the right to work in the Member State in which they are registered, now could search, find and match from over 3 million job vacancies that are available on the EURES portal.
• Awareness raising videos focusing on promoting declared work and preventing exploitation or abuse developed and released on 8 April and 19 May (go to the playlist on ELA's Youtube Channel)
• Support to the Member States in translating material aimed at raising awareness about the risks of undeclared work and labour exploitation, thereby preventing negative outcomes of the lack of accessible and easy to understand information among displaced persons from Ukraine 
• Preventing and tackling undeclared work among displaced persons making full use of  ELA’s Platform Tackling Undeclared Work and newly established sub-group on tackling undeclared work among displaced persons 
• Preventing and fighting trafficking in human beings for purpose of labour exploitation by closely cooperating with other EU institutions in line with Common Anti-Trafficking Plan for persons fleeing the war in Ukraine  
• Mapping of national measures in the field of access to employment and social security offered to displaced persons in the EU and EFTA Member States (updated versions - February 2023):

Please find various materials provided by the European Commission during these sessions here.