Ei-iE

On 28 February, the Greek Federation of Secondary State School Teachers (OLME), one of EI’s national affiliates, organised a demonstration in Athens against the proposed dismissal of 12,500 education workers by 22 March. This demonstration took place at the same time as the Troika’s representatives were discussing permanent teachers and...

During the fights and clashes between demonstrators and police forces the Trade Union House in Kiev was completely destroyed by a fire. Today several hundred trade union workers remain without workplaces and all documents, furniture, office equipment etc. have been lost.

EI’s affiliate, the Australian Education Union (AEU) continues to pursue the objectives of EI’s Unite for Quality Education through its I give a Gonski campaign. For the next five weeks until 18 March, four vans will cover 23,000 km in Australia pressuring the continent’s government to deliver on quality education...

UCU held a one day conference open to all its members on Saturday 1 February 2014. This important conference was about the defence of public education in the so-called age of austerity. This conference perfectly complements the aims of the Unite for Quality Education Campaign.

New ETUC Report on Troika activities confirms destructive effects in Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Based on ETUC investigation into the activities of the Troika of international leaders (EC-ECB-IMF) in selected countries, the Report condemns the takeover operated by the Troika over national elected governments.

A new study has revealed that 27 million children aged 5-13 are out of school in four countries -Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - in South Asia. “Out-of-school children have little opportunity to learn and develop and this has an unfortunate impact on the rest of their lives,” said...

Governments and international partners must invest in quality teachers. That’s according to an EI delegation that attended the launch of the 2013/14 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

EI research affiliates and GCE coalition representatives came together for a three-day Africa and MENA regional conference on “Privatisation and the Right to Education” in Johannesburg, South Africa on 16-18 January 2014.

Blended learning – the combination of traditional learning in classrooms and technology-mediated instruction – was under the spotlight at a dedicated panel at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting, taking place from 22-25 January in Davos, Switzerland. EI’s General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, participated in the panel entitled ‘The future...

The results of the latest ETUCE Health and Safety project Teacher trade unions in solidarity for healthy and safe workplaces in the economic crisis were disseminated last week. ETUCE member organisations will receive USB Flash Drives to disseminate the project results among their members and affiliates.

On 1 February 2014, ETUCE will start a survey that focuses particularly on gender equality in teacher unions and in the teaching profession.

On 1 January 2014, Greece took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The key priorities of the Greek presidency on education are high quality, efficient and equitable education and training systems to enhance employability in Europe.

On 29 January 2014, a demonstration is planned to show solidarity with Spanish women and to fight for the right of abortion in Europe.

ETUCE will take part in the European trade union demonstration on 4 April 2014 organised by the European Trade Union Confederation, ETUC.

In December 2013, a new ETUCE project was launched to tackle the issue of ‘Developing teacher unions’ expertise on exiting the crisis through quality education’, with the objective of addressing the global EU policy aim of exiting from the crisis through improved expertise in industrial relations and social dialogue.

EI has welcomed a European Citizens’ Initiative calling on governments not to count education spending as part of the deficit. The initiative proposes to “exclude from the calculation of each country's public spending deficit, that part of Government spending for education that is lower than the last five-year Eurozone average”.

The OECD's PIAAC survey is the first world-wide survey on adults' skills. It tested literacy, numeracy and problem solving ICT skills of adults aged 16-65. PIAAC covers only 17 countries from Europe.

The Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius that took place on 28-29 November 2013 ended as a failure.