European Trade Union Committee for Education

The COVID 19 outbreak is a public health crisis quite different than anything Europe has faced for many years. As education personnel and their trade unions grapple with the outbreak, we are supporting and informing member organisations in any way we can.

• Latest Updates

• ZNP successfully pushes for including teachers in the priority group for vaccination in Poland
• ETUCE participates in Finnish Educa online event on education and COVID-19
• Montenegro: news of the impact of the pandemic on education
• Kosovo: SBASHK demands signing of Collective Agreement and recognition of teachers’ daily work
• France: education trade unions prepared to strike for decent salaries and quality learning environments
• COVID-19: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control publishes a new study on COVID transmission in schools
• Malta: MUT orders a strike after the government denies their request for online teaching
• Hungary: ETUCE Member organisation calls for teachers to be among priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination
• UK: Education trade unions mobilised to denounce ‘chaotic’ reopening of schools, advising members not to return, prompting government’s U-turn
• Basque Country: thousands of education workers strike for a safe return to school and quality education for all students
• Reopening of schools in the Netherlands: ETUCE Member organisation AOb demands quicker testing and better health and safety measures to protect staff and students and keep schools open
• Education social partners discuss the aftermath of COVID-19 in Europe
• Germany: Ensuring health and safety of teachers requires more efforts for the reopening of schools
• COVID-19: In Italy, 400 000 education workers gather for online rallies to protest for better employment and working conditions during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond
• German-speaking education trade unions LCH, GÖD and VBE unite for a joint statement on COVID-19 and call for better digital training of teachers
• COVID-19 : NEU report highlights weeks of unanswered questions to the government on the reopening of schools
• In Serbia, education trade unions mobilise to advocate for safe return to school for education personnel and students alike at the end of the school year
• Higher education admission procedures risk being disrupted by COVID-19 crisis
• Eurydice reports on closure and reopening of schools and education institutions across Europe
• Remote but not far away: Italy’s FLC-CGIL takes trade union organising online
• In Denmark DLF works hard so that the health and safety of education personnel is protected in back-to-school policies
• Unions in Belgium and Germany join school community voices to demand careful reopening
• In Malta MUT works with government and social partners to guide education system through crisis
• Hungarian trade unions protest plans to force education personnel off public sector contracts
• As France cancels exams, SNES-FSU demands a solution fair to students and teachers
• In Germany VBE insists that lawmakers must consult teachers on COVID-19 legislation
• Spain's FECCOO calls for government action on teacher recruitment
• NEU helps staff in England and Wales stay safe and negotiate with leadership
• Nordic education unions join forces with public authorities to fight pandemic
• Teachers in Serbia make education work despite the crisis
• SBASHK supports education staff in Kosovo with the challenges of digital teaching
• Russia’s ESEUR holds online Congress in shadow of COVID-19 outbreak
• Romania’s FSLI offers psychological support to teachers
• Albanian education union uses technology to reduce impact of COVID-19
• Estonia shares digital education tools for distance teaching and learning
• Latest information on the closure of schools and other education institutions
• ETUCE calls for coordinated and rational measures

A representative study conducted end of May 2020 by the research institute forsa upon request of VBE collected the views of 1006 teachers regarding the reopening of schools. Not only do most of the teachers indicate an increased workload, the survey also shows that 35% of teachers do not feel sufficiently protected by current hygiene and protection measures. Nonetheless, education ministries are ordering to lift distance measures. VBE calls on authorities to increase efforts to ensure the health and safety of German teachers during the reopening of schools.

The study shows 61% of teachers estimate their current workload as significantly or slightly higher than before school closures. The tasks which mostly lead to a higher workload are organisational tasks such as handing out exercises (52%), the parallel responsibility for working groups at home and at school (42%), student’s communication needs at different times of the day (41%), and the familiarisation with the use of digital tools (30%). Education ministries must look very carefully at these issues to guarantee the working protection of teachers, underlines VBE Federal Chairman Udo Beckmann.

The biggest challenge during the reopening of schools, according to 82% of the respondents, is to balance learning differences and to compensate eventual learning lags. Indeed, the COVID-19 crisis has uncovered and amplified pre-existing inequalities caused for example by the digital divide. In its Statement on COVID-19, ETUCE calls for pressing issues regarding equality to be addressed in order to ensure high quality and inclusive education for all and in the long term.

The forsa study also highlights  information deficits regarding the coping with the disease and its symptoms. Beckmann calls on the education ministries to put into place regulations that are simple, clear and plausible. The findings suggest that more efforts are needed to guarantee a safe return to school. In a Joint Statement, ETUCE, OBESSU and EPA call for the health, safety, and wellbeing of the school community to be put at the centre of return-to-school policies, which must be based on a collective reflection of all actors involved.