CESI Expert Commission on Education calls for more investments in educational infrastructure and digital skills

The meeting offered participants the opportunity to exchange with two guest speakers from the European Commissions’ Directorate-General Education, Youth, Sport and Culture on reforms and investments in the education sphere, as well as on the needs of the sector in terms of digital education infrastructure and support of teachers in the digital age.

In dialogue with Alexandra Tamasan, CESI members exchanged on the involvement and consultation of social partners in the national recovery and resilience plans under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility. A particular emphasis lay on possible measures targeting education in general and the teaching profession in particular, such as revisions of recruitment procedures for teachers, better and more continuous training for teachers especially in digital skills, and investments in a boosted digital infrastructure of educational institutions to make them fit for the digital age.

Anusca Ferrari introduced CESI’s members to the EU’s new Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 and available or planned EU support tools for teachers and schools such as SELFIE and SELFIE for teachers (customisable online tools to help schools and teachers assess where they stand with learning in the digital age) as well as forthcoming EU guidelines on disinformation for teachers and educators. She pointed in particular to the important role of EU funding for Member States for the digitalisation of education through the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), InvestEU and Erasmus+. She also noted the potential of a Digital Education Hub, created as part of the European Education Area portal, which is expected to be launched by the end of 2021 to help reach a coordinated digital education policies across the union by providing a space to share information and best practices.

In the context of the debates, CESI members agreed to update the CESI Manifesto for the Teaching Profession of 2018 to adapt it to the rise of new technologies in education and needs for digital skills for educational staff, especially against the background of the Covid-pandemic which has accelerated already ongoing digitalisation processes. This update will mostly rely on CESI’s reply to the European Commission’s recent consultation on a new Digital Education Action Plan in which CESI recommended specific actions to provide teachers with the necessary tools and skills to cope with increasingly evolving education landscapes.

CESI members in the Expert Commission also welcomed the recently adopted report by the European Parliament on “The European Education Area: a shared holistic approach” which, not least following an advocacy meeting with Rapporteur MEP Michaela Šojdrová, stresses the importance of improving the working conditions of teachers and educators through adequate remuneration, adequate investment in training and a higher recognition of the profession.

The President of the Expert Commission, Salvatore Piroscia from the Italian Confsal union, also presented a proposal by his trade union organisation for an ‘Intergenerational Alliance for Employment’ to address in a holistic approach a broad range of challenges related, for instance, to better transitions from school to work, an improved validation of non-formal learning and certification of skills to fight youth unemployment, more support for young people who left the school system and would like to go back to studies, and more effective upskilling and reskilling of older workers at the end of their career.

The next meeting of the Expert Commission will take place in 2022, both online and hopefully with a physical thematic conference too – the epidemiological situation allowing.