Ei-iE

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

1. Recalls the EI resolutions on Teacher and Education Support Personnel’s Mental Health adopted by the 8th EI World Congress in 2019; and on the Status of Teachers adopted by the 1st EI World Congress in 1995;
2. Recalls the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers (1966); the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel (1997); and the ILO Policy Guidelines on the promotion of decent work for early childhood education personnel (2013).

The 10th World Congress recognises that:

3. Teacher and education support personnel (ESP) ^[1] wellbeing is a complex, subjective, and culture-dependent issue, for which the definition is context-driven, affecting individuals and groups differently;
4. There is common consensus framing wellbeing as a broad concept that refers to positive psychological functioning, mental health, self-efficacy and other factors;
5. Scholarly research on teacher and ESP wellbeing has increased since COVID-19, however, a gap remains in global research. Despite studies commissioned by EI there is only a limited range of robust and global research and literature on teachers and ESP perspectives on wellbeing, with a chronic gap for marginalised and vulnerable communities and in crisis and conflict settings;
6. Few government policies address teacher and ESP wellbeing directly, or provide resources for effective implementation, and the alarming deterioration of the conditions which foster wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic have amplified existing deficiencies;
7. Often where policies on wellbeing exist, they rely not on an overall changing of working conditions but on individual teachers and ESP seeking external guidance and being expected to proactively take care of their own wellbeing, thus encompassing extra costs and placing responsibility on teachers for systemic conditions over which they have little or no control;
8. Good school leaders who are respectful towards their personnel and respect the social dialogue play a crucial role in guarding the mental health of the teaching staff;
9. Evidence is emerging of a strong correlation between teacher and ESP wellbeing and student success, satisfaction, wellbeing, and achievement;
10. Evidence is also emerging that there is a strong correlation between levels of child poverty and deprivation and teacher and ESP wellbeing;
11. Whilst teachers and ESP play an important role in supporting students, they should not be a substitute for appropriately qualified and specialist mental health professionals;
12. The wellbeing of teachers and ESP must be prioritised as a collective responsibility for the global education community to uphold commitments outlined in Sustainable Development Goal 4 to ensure inclusive, equitable quality education for all;
13. Poor teacher and ESP wellbeing presents a significant, long-term risk to the quality of education across most countries, as it is linked to deteriorating working conditions, ill-health, reduced satisfaction, exhaustion, burnout and, ultimately, attrition, exacerbating the global teacher shortage;
14. When global, national, and local education stakeholders implement policies and practices that support teacher wellbeing, especially in low resource, crisis, or conflict-affected contexts, there is an opportunity to increase teacher retention, make the profession more attractive and create inclusive learning environments that support greater equity opportunities.

The 10th World Congress notes that teacher and ESP wellbeing is worsened by:

15. Shrinking public spending and education budgets, depriving teachers and ESP of dignified and reliable salaries and the resources to do their jobs;
16. Large class sizes whose composition (challenges and difficulties encountered by pupils) makes the work of teachers more complex;
17. A lack of quality and accessible continuous professional development to meet the changing needs of students and the actual training needs of teachers and ESP;
18. Excessive and increasing workload, role expansion, administrative demands, and continued gender-imbalance in care work in professional and personal contexts which hinder an individual’s ability to have a satisfactory work-life balance;
19. Constant reforms imposed on the governance of education systems and the teaching profession that change with each new government or without adequate teacher and ESP union representation and participation in decision- and policy-making processes;
20. High stakes and punitive accountability and evaluation systems;
21. Limited opportunities for career progression and precarious and temporary contracts;
22. A disregard for teacher leadership, and a lack of respect for teacher professional judgement which is integral to teachers’ sense of self-efficacy;
23. Low social status, lack of respect for the profession and attacks from the employer, the media, community, and/or parents;
24. Government interference and/or bans in the creation and use of curriculum, materials, and teaching methods;
25. Increased violence and attacks directed at students, teachers, ESP, schools, and universities, acutely affecting marginalised and vulnerable groups;
26. Systemic discrimination impacting individual or communal characteristics such as, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, Indigeneity, disability or displacement status;
27. The increasing role of digital technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education which has contributed to higher workloads, diminishing work-life balance, and the further commodification and privatisation of education;
28. Inadequate health and social protection policies and collective agreement language surrounding parental leave, childcare, and mental and physical healthcare, particularly as a largely feminised profession in many contexts;
29. The ongoing existential climate crisis, which both threatens humanity and therefore the well-being of all people, but also undermines young people's optimism for the future.

The 10th World Congress calls on members organisations to:

30. Further their understanding of factors impacting wellbeing, including a gender lens, in their national and local contexts through member consultations and research activities;
31. Include issues of wellbeing and mental health as an integral part of their policies and advocacy, alongside other professional issues such as working conditions and wages, and lead by example, adopting internal policies and practices that promote the well-being of the union’s personnel, as well as their elected representatives;
32. Develop mechanisms or suitable measures that are context specific to monitor the wellbeing of members and ultimately, guide organisations’ policies and activities;
33. Advocate for their governments to take appropriate policy, legislative and other concrete measures to:

1. fully fund their education systems to ensure teacher and ESP pay is adequate and fair and all infrastructure and basic education needs are met as any policy change without substantial government financial investment is unsustainable;
2. advocate for the inclusion of teacher and ESP mental health and wellbeing in national education policies and for effective partnerships between schools, governments, and teacher organisations to create systemic change in supporting teachers and ESP wellbeing and mental health;
3. pursue policies which result in sustainable, long term reductions in the level of child poverty aimed at its eradication;
4. develop mentorship programmes for beginning and novice teachers and integrate support for teacher wellbeing into teacher and ESP training programmes working as partners with teachers, ESP, and their unions;
5. develop support and structures for adapting work for teachers and ESP in the later years of their careers;
6. to ensure that all school leaders receive government-funded, contextually relevant and tailor-made leadership training, continuous professional development and support in order to be able to play a constructive role in assuring the wellbeing of their school team;
7. provide opportunities and support for teachers and ESP to exercise leadership in the development and improvement of professional practice;
8. work in partnership with education unions to create guidance on the introduction on distributed and teacher leadership within schools; 
9. establish for the education unions the right to be heard and to be influential at all levels of policy making including the content and structure of the curriculum and decisions around the use of technology and AI;
10. protect and enhance teachers’ and ESP professional learning with their colleagues and enable teachers to participate in activities which lead to the creation and transfer of professional knowledge;
11. develop gender-diverse and culturally-sensitive equitable recruitment, deployment, and advancement policies for teachers and ESP;
12. develop policies which engage and sensitise school leaders to the importance of teacher and ESP wellbeing;
13. ensure adequate social protection, retirement benefits, childcare provisions, as well as work schedules that enable resting time and work-life balance including through the right to be disconnected ideally through collective agreements;
14. advocate for the recognition that the work environment for teachers is important both for good learning and teaching and for teachers to thrive in their job and have a long and fulfilling professional commitment to teaching;
15. advocate for a partnership between the teacher organisations and employers' organisations in order to establish the conditions which prevent situations of violence and threat among teachers and ESP.

The 10th World Congress calls on EI to:

34. Continue advance the positive ideals of the profession and by so doing highlight powerful links between the well-being of teachers, ESPs and students' mental health and well-being and the quality of their work;
35. Make all efforts to ensure that research commissioned, experts consulted, and speakers invited to EI sponsored events and activities related to teacher and ESP wellbeing at national, regional and global events represent a wide variety of perspectives, bodies of knowledge and approaches;
36. Support members in achieving jurisdiction wide policies on enhancing teacher and ESP wellbeing and mental health;
37. Develop further research and policy on the role of social protection on wellbeing, particularly for women and marginalised and vulnerable groups;
38. Develop practical guidance and materials that members can use to promote a satisfactory work-life balance in their contexts;
39. Further develop strategic collaboration and partnerships with international institutions and stakeholders to seek the best paths forward to advance teacher and ESP wellbeing;
40. Advocate for the promotion of the wellbeing of teachers and ESP working in situations of conflict, crisis and displacement, through robust and targeted policies and support measures that address their specific physical, emotional, and psychosocial needs;
41. Continue documenting the factors impacting the well-being and health of education personnel at work, including by conducting EI’s survey on the Global Status of the Teaching Profession and collaborating with international partners;
42. Advocate for the expansion and funding of childcare provisions to alleviate the burdens of caring responsibilities that traditionally impact the wellbeing of women in the profession;
43. Facilitate exchange among EI member organisations including through conferences, seminars and the creation of an online database for member organisations to enable them to network and share knowledge, experiences and resources related to teacher and ESP wellbeing and mental health.