PDF The Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession

Education International

Vasileios Symeonidis

The Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession A study of education unions' perspectives

March 2015

5 boulevard du Roi Albert II, b-1210 Brussels, Belgium, ei-

THE STATUS OF TEACHERS AND THE TEACHING PROFESSION

Education International Research Institute

THE STATUS OF TEACHERS AND THE TEACHING PROFESSION

A STUDY OF EDUCATION UNIONS' PERSPECTIVES

Report by

Vasileios Symeonidis

M.Sc. International and Comparative Education

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March 2015

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THE STATUS OF TEACHERS AND THE TEACHING PROFESSION

FOREWORD

"The Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession ? A study of education unions' perspectives" is based on an extensive survey (responses from 73 Education International (EI) member organisations from all regions) and a literature review, which dealt with teacher status issues. The research was conducted in the last quarter of 2014 and compiled in 2015. This "status" report was one of the major documents on which EI's Report to the Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendation concerning Teachers (CEART) was based.

This report captures the impact of austerity policies related to the global financial/ economic crisis in a number, but not all, countries. The crisis has placed pressure on wages and working conditions and even acquired rights in a number of countries or served as an excuse to roll back fundamental freedoms (for example, pressure from the "troika", the EU, the European Bank, and the IMF, and not objective considerations, forced violations of the right to collective bargaining in Greece). Some of the effects on education and on this generation of students of ill-advised austerity measures will be felt long after the economy has recovered.

Another disturbing trend in crisis-affected countries, but in many others as well, was the growth of precarious work for teachers and other education workers. Short-term and fixed term contracts in many countries, replaced secure employment. This was often part of a downward spiral of lower quality teaching and teacher training, and large numbers of teachers "bailing out" of education. The teacher shortage, where it exists, is also making teaching less attractive because it has become less "professional". Although found in all education sectors, precarious work was particularly prevalent among workers in higher education, early childhood education, vocational education and training and education support services.

These developments are related to a wider problem of "de-professionalisation". In addition to traditional status of teachers concerns shown in previous EI surveys linked to wages, hours, and working conditions, member trade unions spoke of declines in teacher status due to pressures for privatisation, competitive attitudes, insecure employment relationships, and mistaken policies on measurement and accountability, including "high-stakes" evaluations.

The status of teachers depends on implementation of the principles enshrined in the

Recommendations of the ILO and CEART Concerning the Status of Teachers from 1966

and the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel. De-professionalisation and the pressures of market forces and

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market mentalities in recent years have placed great strain on the recognition of and respect for those principles. This status of teachers report is one more sign, one more piece of evidence that reveals the threats to the status of teachers from misguided "reforms". Given the intimate relationship between teaching conditions and learning conditions; those same threats endanger quality education. This study is yet one more alarm bell about dangers to the teaching profession, the status of teachers, the exercise of the right of education and education as a public good. But, it is a bell that rings only for those who are willing to hear it. These issues must not be crowded out by private interests and slick marketing. They must, instead, move to the centre of a real, quality global debate on the future of education.

Fred Van Leeuwen General Secretary

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