Summertime means holidays for most workers – a time for deserved resting. This is however not the case for many teachers across Europe who experience the end of their work contracts once summer starts. For them the holiday season means economic instability and uncertainty, in some cases even coupled with lack of access to basic social protection rights.

For a long time now has CESI highlighted the often precarious nature of work in the educational sector and the frequent abusive use of repetitive, involuntary, temporary or fixed-term work contracts given to school teachers and other service providers in education which expire at the end of the academic year so that employer saves social security contributions and salaries during the summer holidays. CESI trade union members reporting from the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Germany indicate recent increases in the use of involuntary temporary work contracts. Unfortunately there in no pan-European overview or study to underpin this yet.

Since 2008, Europe has witnessed educational austerity and precarious employment contracts becoming increasingly normalised across the education sector in many Member States. And after the Covid pandemic, which was followed by the economic consequences of war in Ukraine, national budget allocations for the educational area are often even less than before. With EU governments priorities focusing on combatting the effects of inflation or putting forward sustainable energy policies, schools are always faced with doing with less and less resources.

For over a decade, in some EU countries teachers have been facing a lack of access to standard forms of employment. This puts a huge burden on how they can perform in their jobs and on the quality of their lives overall. CESI believes that the plethora of insecure jobs in the public education sector should be combatted through adequate investments and highlights the importance of access to social protection for all workers including teachers, of proper and effective interest representation, of inclusive social dialogue and of closing existing legislative loopholes in the EU directives on fixed-term contracts, part-time contracts, and temporary agency work.

CESI Secretary General, Klaus Heeger, said: “Young people are the future of our societies and we should put them at the core of our policies. In order to ensure their prosperous and healthy development we need to invest in the teachers who transmit to our youngsters our best education and our values to become responsible citizens of tomorrow! Without this there can be no good future for the EU.”

Video message from Matthäus Fandrejewski, CESI Youth Representative, explaining the situation of teachers in Germany that face precarious employment.