Members of the EI Pan-European Committee and the Executive Board of the European Trade union Committee for Education (ETUCE) are in Brussels today for a two-day meeting to discuss challenges confronting teacher trade unions in the region today.
Committee President, Ronnie Smith from the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS), opened the meeting with a warm welcome to members who are attending the event for the first time. The Pan-European Committee direct the affairs and activities of the EI European region between the Pan-European Conferences. It comprises representatives elected by the Conference and the ETUCE Executive Board comprises representatives elected from members states of the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). The committee makes decisions and submits them as proposals to the Conference for consideration.
Before the meeting continued, the committee held a minute of silence to remember Steve Sinnott, former General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) who passed away recently on 5 April.
Within the short span of two days, the teacher union leaders will discuss issues ranging from equality and stress at work to the Bologna Process on Higher Education.
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The meeting was preceded by the Pan-European Status of Women (PESW) committee which met for the first time today.
The PESW committee, which adopted the same structure as the EI Status of Women Committee, is composed of the women members of the Regional Committee.
Odile Cordelier of the SNES-FSU (France) was nominated chairperson.
Formal and informal relations with the two standing committees, the Equality Committee and the Higher Education and Research Committee will be assured through close liaison.
This first meeting discussed the mandate and immediate priorities of the PESW committee. It will operate within the framework of the EI work on gender equality. Members of the group all agreed that one of the main tasks will be to monitor the effectiveness of the provisions for the representation of women within the Pan-European Structure.
The work will focus on topics which are of major importance for the Pan-European region, such as gender equality in the unions, but will also examine the main EI resolutions on pay equity and the gender dimension of international migration.
The next meeting of the PESW committee will take place on December 11 in Luxemburg.