Ei-iE

This year’s World Education Support Personnel (ESP) Day, May 16th, is an opportunity to celebrate, thank, and organise alongside ESP. Education International (EI) and its member organisations are focusing on gender justice in 2026. This reflects a structural reality across education systems worldwide: education support roles are highly feminised, systematically...

Mexico is one of the twenty-seven countries that form part of Education International in North America and the Caribbean. Mexico’s national union of education workers, the SNTE, is one of the world’s largest, with a total membership of 1.6 million active workers and 1 million retired workers. Of the former,...

They feed thousands. Who cares for them? Every morning before the first bell rings and the first lesson starts, a group of women are already on the job at Ghana’s schools. They light fires, lift heavy pots, chop vegetables and cook meals for thousands of students across the country. By...

World Education Support Personnel (ESP) Day is an opportunity for education unions to celebrate, thank, and organise alongside ESP. World Education Support Personnel Day was established in 2018 when the first global ESP conference resolved to recognise and celebrate a yearly international day on 16 May.

The CFDT Public Education, Training and Research Federation and its member unions recognise that “inclusive education represents a major democratic advance, by affirming the right of every child to learn within the French education system, regardless of their specific needs”. But the implementation of this principle is currently facing numerous...

When the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) launched the Education International (EI) Go Public! Fund Education campaign in The Philippines, the union ensured that the country’s 120,000 education support personnel (ESP) were at the very center of its advocacy. ACT mobilised around the rights, living and working conditions of the...

Education Support Personnel (ESP) are the backbone of our schools, yet they often face discrimination, low wages, and lack of job security. On World ESP Day, May 16th, education unions worldwide raised their voices to recognition and demand better conditions.

Go Public! Invest in Education Support Personnel: Ensure inclusive education.

Around 450 teachers from Northern Quebec went on strike until January 21st to express their exasperation because negotiations with employers have come to a standstill. They want their demands to be heard and for them to produce concrete results.

We are against education personnel having to work in precarious jobs and who are being sacrificed and ignored. This was the slogan put forward by the inter-union alliance, which has called for a strike on January 16th, in support of SEN teaching assistants and education support assistants. Unions are asking...

Building power as a global movement to defend Education Support Personnel (ESP) rights and status was top of the agenda at the breakout session titled “Defending ESP rights: Organising against funding shortfalls and privatisation” and held on July 30th 2024, during the 10th World Congress of Education International (EI). In...

In a comprehensive new report titled "Carrying the Community: Addressing the Consequences of Privatization and Funding Shortfalls for Education Support Personnel," Education International (EI) has brought to light the critical challenges faced by Education Support Personnel (ESP) due to increasing privatization and funding cuts in public education.

In November 2023, the North Tyneside Council in England announced that it would withdraw from providing catering to local schools. In August that year, lawmakers in Austin, Texas, passed a law allowing unlicensed chaplains to work as school counsellors, while in March in Gauteng, staff working in South Africa’s National...

On May 16th, World Education Support Personnel (ESP) Day, Education International (EI) and its member organizations reiterate that education professionals – like teaching assistants, school nurses, cafeterias workers, maintenance crews, and bus drivers – play a crucial role in ensuring quality education and a safe learning environment.

Celebrating the crucial role of Education Support Personnel for quality education for all. Education Support Personnel (ESP), a range of professionals like teaching assistants, school nurses, cafeterias workers, maintenance crews, and bus drivers, play a crucial role in ensuring quality education and a safe learning environment.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), both affiliated to Education international (EI), have welcomed the introduction of the Paraprofessionals and Education Support Staff Bill of Rights , seeking to provide fair wages, comprehensive benefits and equitable working conditions to the dedicated paraeducators, classroom assistants,...