ETUCE Newsletter, November 2009
The latest issue of the ETUCE newsletter has been published.
The newsletter includes, among other subjects, information on the last ETUCE conferences (Social dialogue, Teachers' Work Related Stress, Gender...), the European year of creativity, the Lisbon Treaty...
Two ETUCE new statements related with the impact of the economic crisis on the education sector in European countries
The ETUCE has addressed to the relevant national authorities a statement over the situation in Hungary. The education sector in Hungary is currently at risk of a 15 % reduction of its national budget, which would lead to a deterioration of the teachers’ working conditions, the raise of the amount of pupils per classroom and an overall decline of the quality in the education system.
In this statement, the ETUCE reminds the Hungarian authorities on the European Council's commitment for a high-quality education system, “precisely in times of economic difficulty”.
In parallel, the ETUCE also addressed a statement to the relevant authorities in Finland. As a consequence of the economic crisis, several Finnish local authorities decided to temporarily layoff 6.000 teachers in pre-primary, primary and secondary education. This decision not only affects the teachers’ working conditions but also the overall quality of education for more than 80.000 pupils. The ETUCE stands with its Finnish member organisation covering these levels of education, that opposes this decision.
Success of the social partners in education’s joint European conference
The ETUCE and the European Federation of Education Employers (EFEE) held a joint conference on 29th of September in Brussels. This event came as the latest step in a process initiated by the ETUCE five years ago. During the conference, the two organisations signed up a joint application letter to create a European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for Education, in conformity with Articles 138-139 of the EC Treaty. The application was sent on the 30th of September. It includes as annexes draft versions of the Rules of Procedures for the Committee and of its first two-year work programme, as the social partners agreed upon in April of this year. The European Social Dialogue in Education is expected to start in early 2010. The ETUCE and the EFEE both expressed their mutual recognition as well as their congratulations and thanks to each other for their commitment in the process, that has led to this successful outcome.
Special webpage on the economic crisis
The ETUCE has developed specific policies and actions in response to the crisis. This special page presents the latest information and the ETUCE action on the impact of the crisis in the education sector.
Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe
Human Rights Committee
Call on the President of Lithuania not to sign the “Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information” because of its homophobic content >>>
Upcoming European Parliament
elections on 4-7 June 2009
Why to vote? In 2009, the European Union
has entered a critical and complex period,
when the undergoing economic crisis of an unprecedented scale is combined with a decisive institutional context. Between the 4th and the 7th June 2009 voters around Europe are invited to elect the new European Parliament. For the first time since the 1979 first direct elections for EP have been organised, citizens from all 27 EU member states are called to vote on the same dates. Immediately after the EP elections, a procedure on the selection of the new European Commission is supposed to be started. The upcoming EP elections appear as bringing a momentum for the trade union movement, but also for civil society and citizens in general to request a more social and people-oriented Europe. What is at stake in Europe in 2009 is the future composition of the newly elected European Parliament for the next 5 years.
Teachers demonstrated all over Europe
from 14 to 16 May 2009
Thousands of demonstrators walked through the streets of Madrid, Brussels, Berlin and Prague, among which various ETUCE member organisations...
Eurodemos
The upcoming Euro-Demonstrations organised by the ETUC under the motto “Fight the crisis: put people first!” will welcome broad delegations of teachers.
- In Madrid on the 14th of May, all the Spanish member organisations along with two Portuguese teachers’ trade-unions will demonstrate in a dedicated teachers’ group. A representative of the ETUCE will join them.
- In Brussels on the 15th of May, the teachers will demonstrate along with the confederations of the public sector.
- In Berlin on the 16th of May, the GEW will be joined by the Polish ZNP & NSZZ Solidarnosc.
- In Prague, on the 16th of May, the CMOS-PS will demonstrate along with the FSLI from Romania and ESTUS (Slovenia). Two ETUCE representatives will join them.
Creation of a European Federation of Employers in Education
National employers in education from 19 EU member states gathered in Brussels on 26th of February 2009 for the 1st meeting of the European Federation of Employers in Education (EFEE). The participants in the meeting represented 75% of the EU population. The variety of employers’ organisations was also well represented with 8 Ministries of Education, 4 associations of local governments and 7 public agencies, all of them being nationally recognized as employers in education.
18 organisations from 15 countries decided to become founders of the EFEE. It is hoped that the other organisations represented at the meeting will decide to join EFEE later after complementary decisions have been taken nationally. An Interim Secretariat as well as an Executive Committee were appointed.
The 26th of February 2009 will remain an important date in the overall process leading to a European Sectoral Social Dialogue in Education. The ETUCE is no longer dealing with individual employers but has now a full partner at EU level to dialogue with. The ETUCE and the EFEE are now engaging discussions about the statutes of the European Sectoral Committee for Education and its first work programme.
ELFE 2 Regional Seminar in Brussels
On 19 January, the ETUCE organised a two-day regional seminar on the European eLearning Forum for Education in Brussels. 31 teacher union representatives, from the EU-15 countries, participated in the seminar. The seminar focused on the aims and approaches of the ELFE2 project as well as its preliminary conclusions and it opened the floor for further debate on the challenges and possibilities of ICT in education. The seminar also featured presentations from the OECD and the European Commission on these institutions work and experiences in the area of ICT in education. The next regional seminar on ELFE2, intended to the EU-12 countries, will be organised in Riga, Latvia on 12 & 13 March.
ETUCE seminar on teachers’ work-related stress
The ETUCE seminar on teachers’ WRS took place in Brussels on 16-17 February 2009. This seminar was aimed at launching the work of the Health and Safety section of the ETUCE Network on Working Conditions and Health and Safety. The event had a high level of attendance: 58 teacher union representatives from 23 countries attended the event. The main theme of the seminar was risk assessment on work-related stress, focusing on its implementation in schools, the crucial importance of the consultation of workers and workers’ representatives in this process and the content of a good questionnaire in the risk analysis.
Keynote presentations were made by representatives from the European Agency on Health and Safety, the European Trade Union Institute and the Freiburg research centre, occupational and social medicine in Germany.
The follow-up of this meeting will take place in the on-line ETUCE Network on Working Conditions on Health and Safety. Good practices on risk assessment systems will be collected. Further on, the work will focus on teacher unions strategies on WRS and the inclusion of psychosocial risks in social dialogue at institutional, local, regional and national levels.
Trough all this work, ETUCE is implementing its Action Plan on teachers WRS, approved by the Executive Board on 14-15 April and supporting the implementation of the European Framework Agreement on WRS.
ETUCE Statements
Read the new ETUCE statements adopted by the Executive Board meeting in Luxembourg on 11-12 November :
- ETUCE statement on the Commission's proposal for a European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET)
- ETUCE Statement on the European Commission’s Communication: Improving competences for the 21st Century an Agenda for European Cooperation on Schools
- ETUCE Statement on the European Commission’s Green Paper “Migration and Mobility: challenges and opportunities for EU education systems”
ETUCE Council
On 10th November, the ETUCE Council meeting took place in Luxembourg. Around 115 participants attended this annual meeting focusing this year on the implementation of the 2010 Education and Training Process at national level. It was made clear that the cooperation between national governments and teacher trade unions was not enough developed. From the information available from 23 of the 27 EU member states, only one third of the unions have been involved in the implementation of EU recommendations and one third of them have not been consulted at all on this issue.
24/11/2008
Consultative meeting on the revision of the Pan-European structure (11 November 2008) :
Last issue of the ETUCE Newsletter
The November issue of the ETUCE newsletter has been published.
The newsletter includes information on the new ETUCE project on gender equality, the ETUCE Action Plan on WRS, two new ETUCE Statements on ECVET proposal and schools for 21st Century, recent developments regarding the social dialogue process and much more...
05/11/08
Education under attack in Italy
The ETUCE wishes to express its full support to the Italian teachers currently struggling against a so-called "reform" of the education system undertaken by the Italian government.
The plan made by the President of the Italian Council Mr Silvio Berlusconi and the Minister of Education Ms Mariastella Gelmini involves a cut of 8 billion Euros in the budget for education and a cut of more than 100,000 jobs in the sector over 4 years. These measures would lead to a significant increase of pupils per classroom and to weaker working conditions for teachers. Programmes for pupils with special needs would be abandoned. The plan also attacks education as a public good by willing to turn schools and universities into private foundations under private control. The autonomy and resources of Higher Education and Research are also targeted by the Berlusconi/Gelmini plan, for which no stakeholder in education were ever consulted.
The Italian teachers' unions are taking action against this assault against education by the Italian government and have called for national strikes on 30 October and 14 November.
The ETUCE and Education International issued a joint statement on this topic on 20 October and are considering further rapid action at EU and international levels.
21/10/2008
New Commission Communication reinforces the call on Member States to improve equity in education
Following up on the Europe-wide consultation on Schools for the 21st Century conducted last autumn, the European Commission has today issued a Communication on schools that strongly calls on Member States to reinforce their efforts to improve equity in education, improve teacher education and improve access to high quality early childhood education.
The ETUCE welcomes these main messages and in particular the specific calls on Member States to develop national action plans to increase levels of reading literacy and numeracy, to develop a comprehensive approach to pupils’ competence development, to target efforts on those with low skills, to avoid early tracking of pupils, to increase financial support to schools attracting disadvantaged pupils, to reduce quality differences between schools, and to encourage schools to use systemic and cyclical self-evaluation as a means of identifying directions for change.
Teacher education is rightly seen as one of the crucial areas of action for improving the quality of schools. Echoing the Council Conclusions from 2007, the Commission proposes to focus the future EU cooperation on teacher education on “ensuring that teachers’ initial education, induction and ongoing professional development are coordinated, coherent, adequately resourced and quality assured; and improving the supply, quality and take-up of in-service teacher education; reviewing teacher recruitment to attract the most able candidates, select the best applicants, and place good teachers in challenging schools.” In the opinion of the ETUCE, the answer to meeting many of the challenges for schools set out in the Communication would be to ensure that all teachers are educated at Master’s level.
The ETUCE will follow closely the further debate at EU level on this Communication.
02/07/08
ETUCE Newsletter, July 2008
The latest issue of the ETUCE newsletter has been published.
The newsletter includes information on the recent ETUCE conference on violence in schools, the progress made in the process towards establishing a European Social Dialogue committee in Education, the new ETUCE policy paper on 'Teacher Education in Europe' and the last ETUCE statement on the priorities for the continuation of the "Education & Training 2010" process beyond 2010.
03/07/08
ETUCE Statement on the "Return Directive"
The ETUCE has issued a Statement against the Directive on "common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals", the so-called "Return Directive". The ETUCE is seriously concerned that the directive, if adopted, would endanger the Right to Education for children, and, more generally, is disappointed to see that the directive takes an unbalanced approach between the need to combat illegal migration and the respect of Human Rights. The European Parliament will vote on this Directive in Plenary on 18th June 2008.
ETUCE expresses serious concerns regarding the recent developments on the Working Time Directive
In advance of the meeting of the Council of Employment Ministers on 9th June, the ETUCE wrote to the Slovenian Presidency of the EU to stress its serious concerns regarding the recent developments over the Working Time Directive. The last version of the Directive, proposed by the Slovenian Presidency, gives the possibility for Member States to easily opt-out from Article 6 of the Directive which sets the working time to a maximum of 48 hours per week. If endorsed, this possibility would empty the Working Time Directive of its core purpose and constitutes therefore a step backward for Community regulations on labour. Several ETUCE member organisations also took rapid action on this issue by calling on their national government not to accept this proposal from the Presidency.
The ETUCE strongly regrets the decision of the Council on 9th June to endorse the proposal of the Slovenian Presidency in their 1st reading of the Directive. As the proposed Directive now goes back to the European Parliament for a 2nd legislative reading, the ETUCE will continue to campaign for a clear and unambigious end to the possibility for Member States to opt-out from the Directive.
Council agreement on the Temporary Agency Directive
The ETUCE welcomes the agreement reached by the EU Employment and Social Affairs Council on 9th June concerning the Temporary Agency Directive. The draft text for the Directive endorsed by the Council indeed introduces the principle of a compulsory equal treatment between workers hired by Temporary Work Agencies and other workers. Together with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the ETUCE welcomes this agreement as a significant improvement for working conditions within the EU countries emanating from a Community legislation.
ETUCE Statement on the preparation of the renewed Social Agenda
In response to the preparation of a renewed Social Agenda at EU level and to the Commission’s Communication on the social vision for 21st century Europe, the ETUCE has published a statement on how the education sector can contribute to meeting the objectives of the Social Agenda as well as what measures are needed to ensure fulfilling careers and promote equal opportunities for the teaching profession itself. The ETUCE stresses that the social dimension needs to ensure equal access to education for all children regardless of socio-economical background. It is moreover crucial with stable, predictable and long-term public funding to teachers and schools to provide a safe and inspiring learning environment and bring about equality, social inclusion and cohesion in the EU. The ETUCE states that the renewed Social Agenda must lead to concrete action.
ETUCE statement on EU cooperation on Education & Training beyond 2010
In response to the current debates at EU level on the preparation of the strategic framework for the EU cooperation on education and training beyond 2010, the ETUCE has issued a statement that outlines the ETUCE’s views on what the future EU priorities should be in the area of education and training.
The ETUCE firmly encourages the Commission to maintain a strong focus on teacher education and improving teacher quality. To keep the lifelong perspective on education, the ETUCE also calls for improved quality of and access to Early Childhood Education and recommends that ECE becomes a key priority in the future strategic framework for education and training.
