On 4th and 5th June 2014, ETUCE held its second and third round table meeting within the project “Promoting the potentials of the European sectoral social dialogue in education by addressing new challenges and exploring experience and knowledge”. The meetings took place in Ljubljana and Zagreb and therefore raised discussions on the status of social dialogue in education respectively in Slovenia and Croatia.
Both round table meetings were carried out together with ETUCE’s affiliates and project partners in the two countries, the Education and Science Trade Union of Slovenia, ESTUS, and the Independent Union of Research and Higher Education Employees of Croatia, IURHEEC. In both countries the meetings gathered participants from other organisations and representatives from the national Education Ministries. Among others, Slovenian State Secretary, Aljus Pertinac and the Croatian Assistant Minister for Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education, Sabina Glasovac, as well as EFEE’s recently elected President Michael Moriarty and Christian Welz from Eurofound contributed with highly interesting presentations to the successful meetings which launched vital debates among participants.
The meetings were useful for ETUCE and its member organisations in Slovenia and Croatia as it gave an insight on the current situation in the education social dialogue in each country. Like in Bucharest where the first round table meeting was held, the meetings revealed a deep concern about the status quo of education social dialogue and the developments or rather the lack of developments within the education sector in Slovenia and Croatia. Especially in Croatia the situation appeared to be far more complicated and problematic. The meetings proved the importance and need to focus more on requirements to promote the education social dialogue at national and European level. ETUCE hopes that the overall outcome of the project will generate solutions to the current challenges that the social dialogue in education faces.