Teacher Shortages: Education and active labour market policies responses

 A CESI@noon brought to you by CESI Youth

Tuesday, September 24 2024, 12:00-14:00 o’clock

in hybrid format (online & in Brussels)

in English and French languages

light lunch on site included

Registration

Large cohorts of retiring teachers and an insufficient recruitment of newcomers have led to substantial teacher shortages. Estimates for Europe amount to more than a million.

Precarious working conditions – such as the abusive use of fixed-term contracts for many teachers – are a root cause of these shortages, as they render the profession unattractive in many Member States.

This is especially true for young high school graduates that look to choose and jumpstart their tertiary education and professional career. The precarious working conditions that many teachers face also reflect a lack of recognition and a general low appreciation of the role of teachers, which has also been severely criticised in CESI’s teachers’ Manifesto.

Understaffing trends are not only detrimental to the education sector and its pupils and students themselves, but to the competitiveness, economic development and well-being of the society as a whole too. Resilient societies and economies require education systems with sufficient teachers to educate tomorrow’s responsible citizens and skilled workforces.

In times of profound social, economic, environmental and geopolitical transformations – which include the green-digital twin transition and an ever-increasing global innovation competition across industrial sectors –, teacher shortages must urgently be addressed to secure a future for Europe’s high quality education systems. This starts with active labour market policies that put quality employment conditions and a valorisation of the teaching profession at their core.

On September 24^th, CESI invites you to discuss the EU’s role in addressing teacher’s shortages as a result of a poor valorsation of the profession, insufficient working conditions in general and abusive uses of fixed-term contracts in particular.

It will address questions such as:

• What measures can the EU implement to address the widespread use of fixed-term contracts for teachers, and how can these measures ensure long-term job security and career stability?
• How can European countries make the teaching profession more attractive to new entrants considering the current challenges such as a lack of appreciation and fair working conditions?
• Can the integration of digitalisation and climate policies within the education system contribute to reducing teacher shortages and improve the overall quality of education and education outcomes in Europe?

Provisional agenda:

12:00 Welcome and light lunch

12:30 Welcome address & introduction

Klaus Heeger, Secretary General of CESI

12:40 Evidence-based findings & possible policy recommendations to address teacher shortages

Kristof Witte, Professor for education economics at KU Leuven and Maastricht University (tbc)

12:50 The situation of Italian precarious school workers

Marcello Pacifico, President of the Italian teachers’ trade union ‘ANIEF’

13:00 Precarious employment of substitute teachers in Germany

Stefan Düll, Vice-President or the German teachers’ trade union ‘DPhV’ and President of the German teachers’ association ‘Deutscher Lehrerverband’

13:10 A youth perspective to teacher shortages, skills and labour market opportunities

Matthäus Fandrejewski, CESI Youth Representative and President of the youth section of the German civil service federation ‘dbb Jugend’

13:20 Teacher labour shortages and lessons for future policy

Dragoș Adăscăliței, Research Officer in the Employment Unit of Eurofound

13:30 A political approach to addressing teacher shortages and future outlooks

Elena Donazzan, Member of the European Parliament

13:40 Discussion with the audience – approaches and initiatives for the future

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The European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI) is a confederation of more than 40 national and European trade union organisations from over 20 European countries, with a total of more than 6 million individual members. In the education sector, CESI represents several hundred thousand teaching professionals across Europe, covering all main sub-sectors of the education system. CESI participates in the European sectoral social dialogue ‘Education’ as complementary social partner.