John Thompson Fellowship training programme (COPE-Pacific)

Cooperation Projects

John Thompson Fellowship training programme (COPE-Pacific)

Implementing Countries: Fiji; Vanuatu; Tonga; Papua New Guinea; Solomon Islands

Description

The JTF is a four year program with a focus on the sub-regional level proposed for the following reasons including, and not limited to:

Similarity of the issues being faced by the unions in the sub-region;
Sharing good practices and lessons learnt based on the experience in the sub-region;
Fostering solidarity among the teachers unions and strengthening sub-regional structures.

The program is to strengthen the union capacity to represent, to defend the rights and interests of the members nationally, regionally and internationally at different professional and political foras as well as building the capacity of their members through targeted member engagement, development of grassroots leaders and identifying new ways of working to influence the traditional union structures in positive ways, while also acting as a platform of wider union collaboration.

Objectives

Build the capacity of teacher union(s) to develop and speak for their members:

Assist member organisations to develop strategic plans in line with the priorities of the participating organisations
Prepare a pool of skilled leaders and trainers in unionism both men and women by developing practical leadership and managerial skills in leading a teachers union;
Share good practices and experiences on variety of issues among unions from different sub-regions including membership engagement, organising, representation etc.;
Support unions in developing a united working and collaborative platform across different levels of the representative groups;
Support unions to engage around and across variety of topics such as human and trade union rights (decent work agenda), quality public education (SDGs), children’s rights.

Activities

Workshop presentations
Panel discussions
Group discussions
Presentation

Outcomes

Participants:

Have acquired necessary skills and capacities to support the development of the union in areas of good governance, financial practices, service delivery to membership etc., and able to participate and to conduct trainings.
Have a better understanding about the roles of unions and the movement as a whole, specifically engaging in developing clear and powerful narrative about the importance of education unions and to speak for the whole profession;
Ability to engage in educational policy debates and policy analysis at national, regional and global levels;
Engagement and communication of and with wider membership in union work, especially women and young members;
Promote active involvement of women in the union leadership;
Towards the end of the training program the trainers from each countries worked in country organizations and prepared plans for strategic developments. Actions plan dealt with realistic issues of the unions that the group identifies as high priority.