ETUCE Calls for an ambitious EU Teachers Agenda and Education Package in Response to the Commission's Call for Evidence
The European Commission is currently preparing a very ambitious Education Package 2040 Roadmap: Quality Education for All, Basic Skills, Teachers and Digital Education that is to be published later this year. These policy proposals are expected to shape future European action on quality education, basic skills, the teaching profession and digitalisation. As part of this process, the Commission launched a Call for Evidence inviting stakeholders to help shape these future initiatives.
Representing 4.9 million teachers and education staff across Europe, the voice of European teachers, ETUCE has submitted its contribution, calling for a coherent approach based on investment in public education, professional autonomy and recognition, social dialogue and democratic governance.
A central message of ETUCE's response is that the proposed EU Teachers Agenda and the teaching profession must become the cornerstone of the package. Addressing teacher shortages requires more than recruitment campaigns. Teachers need attractive salaries, manageable workloads, secure employment, quality professional development, greater professional trust. All through structural social dialogue, from the classroom to the European level.
ETUCE also stresses that improving basic skills cannot be separated from tackling wider challenges such as socio-economic inequalities, unequal access to education and teacher shortages. Reforms will only succeed when teachers are actively involved in their design and implementation.
On digitalisation, ETUCE welcomes plans for a sovereign European Digital Education Infrastructure but emphasises that digital tools and artificial intelligence must support, not replace, teachers. Any future digital infrastructure should be built in the public interest, with strong democratic oversight and meaningful involvement of educators and their representative organisations.
Finally, ETUCE calls for stronger and more structured cooperation on both policy design and implementation between European institutions and teacher unions. Education policies are most effective when they are developed with teachers rather than for teachers. ETUCE is confident that Executive Vice President and the European Commission want to work closely with the teaching profession on it's own future.
Read ETUCE's full response to the consultation below.