Ei-iE

The 10th Education International (EI) World Congress, meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 29 July to 2 August 2024:

1. Recognising education support personnel’s (ESP) important contribution to ensuring equitable, inclusive and quality education for all and fostering the development of the whole student;
2. Further recognising education support personnel’s role in supporting student learning, wellbeing and safety;
3. Reaffirming the vision outlined in the Education International Declaration on the Rights and Status of Education Support Personnel;
4. Affirming the power of trade unions to advocate for improved working and employment conditions for education support personnel;
5. Yet noting that 85% of world’s population will live in the grip of stringent austerity measures by the end of 2023 and that this trend is likely to continue until at least 2025 unless governments take decisive action;
6. Concerned that public education funding has stagnated or declined in the education sector in a very large number of countries since 2020;
7. Observing that reductions in education budgets impact the job security, rights, wellbeing, and employment conditions of education support personnel;
8. Further observing that insufficient education funding can lead to increased privatisation and outsourcing of education support personnel roles;
9. And observing as well the negative impacts on the learning conditions for students;
10. Noting that education support personnel often have low salaries, and that the cost-of-living crisis has worsened education support personnel’s living conditions;
11. Further noting that many education support personnel roles are female dominated professions and that ensuring their quality working conditions is necessary for the realisation of diversity and gender equity;
12. Aware that digitalisation and climate change are adding new challenges and realities to the role of education support personnel;
13. Alarmed by the continuing prevalence of reports of violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment, against education support personnel;
14. Notes with concern the threat to labour rights, professional rights and, where applicable, academic freedom of education support employees.

The 10th EI World Congress calls upon governments to:

15. Urgently increase investment in public education in line with international targets and the Transforming Education Summit Call to Action on Financing;
16. Invest in sufficient numbers of trained and qualified educational support personnel, who have good working conditions and salaries that enable a life with dignity, and quality career pathways, within the scope of the ‘Aveiro Statement, dated 18 May 2023;
17. Provide education support personnel with quality training and free professional development opportunities according to their needs;
18. Increase the attractiveness of a career as an education support worker;
19. Investigate the degree to which there are shortages of education support personnel and the causes;
20. Take concrete actions to enhance the status of education support personnel and ensure that they are recognised as part of the education community;
21. Ensure gender pay equity;
22. Halt and reverse the privatisation of education and the outsourcing of education support personnel roles to contractors;
23. Ensure that education support personnel have secure and permanent positions, with access to full-time employment;
24. Ratify and implement Convention C190 of the International Labour Organization to ensure education support personnel are safe from all forms of violence including gender-based violence in the workplace;
25. Ensure a just transition in the education sector by protecting education support personnel’s safety and labour rights in the context of the worsening impacts of the climate crisis;
26. Collaborate with education support personnel and their unions to define how information technologies can support their work, and provide high quality training on how to use them effectively;
27. Respect the labour rights of education support personnel and their right to join unions;
28. Respect trade union rights, including the right to organise, bargain collectively, and strike, as well as engage in meaningful social dialogue with organisations representing education support personnel.

It further encourages education unions to:

29. Continue to advocate for the worldwide application of the Education International Declaration on the Rights and Status of Education Support Personnel;
30. Call for increased domestic and international public education financing and specific funding for education support personnel as part of Education International’s Go Public! Fund Education campaign;
31. Build union power to defend the rights and status of education support personnel by recruiting and organising members, promoting their active participation in the formulation of claims as well as promoting the elimination of the political, structural and legal barriers to unionisation where they exist;
32. Encourage ESP and teacher representatives to support each other and work hand in hand to defend common rights and values to ensure student needs are met.