The Committee of the Education International’s European region, the European Trade Union Committee for Education, has called on the public authorities of Netherlands to ensure decent working conditions and salaries for Dutch educators.
“Substantial public funding in education is a cornerstone of the teaching profession. In the frame of our campaign ‘Shape the Future of Europe with Teachers’, we demand sustainable public investment and support for teachers, academics and other education personnel for quality education for all to promote the attractiveness of the teaching profession and the status of teachers in society,” asserted the members of the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), in their support letter of 14 March to their Dutch colleagues of the Algemene Onderwijsbond (AOb).
The European trade union leaders declared their support to AOb “in their demand to the Government of the Netherlands to substantially increase public funding in education; more specifically to:
• close the wage gap between primary and secondary education;
• reduce the teaching week in secondary education to 20 lessons;
• upgrade the salary position of teachers in VET and Higher Education;
• provide career perspectives for teachers and other education personnel;
• revoke the foreseen cuts in the budgets for universities.”
The ETUCE went on to state that, together with AOB, “we call on the Government of the Netherlands to ensure decent working conditions and salaries for teachers, academics and other education personnel with a view to make the teaching profession attractive for the benefit of the present and future generation”.
Echoing AOb arguments for “safeguarding education as a vital element for the future of the Netherlands,” the ETUCE Committee affirmed their “resolute support” to the campaign week – 11-15 March – of the Dutch educators’ union, which will culminate in a national strike.