Ei-iE

Education unions in Southern Europe are working to address the persistent teacher shortage in their countries through the Go Public! Fund Education campaign. Coming together in Athens from May 11 to the 13, unions from Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain shared insights into the challenges they are facing and the strategies they are employing to campaign for fully funded public education systems and for a strong and respected teaching profession.

“Despite the varied contexts, underinvestment in education and in teachers is the challenge we share across borders and it is the main cause of the teacher shortage. Go Public! Fund Education helps education unions to campaign for well-resourced equitable public education systems that value and invest in teachers. The United Nations Recommendations on the Teaching Profession are a critical tool for our advocacy because they support union demands and the solutions we envision. Together we are organizing and mobilizing at the local, national, regional and global levels to ensure that every learner, no matter where they live, is taught by a qualified, well-paid, well-supported and well-respected teacher, every day, every lesson”, stated David Edwards, Education International General Secretary.

Greece: Salaries barely cover rent

EI member organisations the Greek Primary Teachers Federation (DOE) and the Greek Federation of Secondary State School Teachers (OLME) welcomed colleagues to Athens and shared insights into the challenges Greek teachers are facing. With salaries as low as 780 EUR a month, teachers at the beginning of their career can barely afford to pay their rent. Precarity is also a significant issue, with 25% of teachers employed on 9-month contracts.

In this context, “Go Public! Fund Education is a particularly important campaign. It serves as a basis to build alliances, since every union can identify its needs, priorities, and targets. It provides assistance to unions in order to plan and implement their strategies and collaborate with other unions and stakeholders, so that they can fight effectively against educational policies that undermine public education”, stated Thanasis Kikinis, DOE Secretary General and Member of the ETUCE Committee.

Italy: Precarity and low salaries fuelling the teacher shortage

Educators in Italy are also affected by the teacher shortage and insufficient funding for education. According to education unions, salaries are low and have not kept up with inflation, decreasing teachers’ purchasing power. Precarity is also a major issue, with over 250,000 teachers and education support personnel on temporary contracts.

Italy needs 45,000 more teachers to reach the average teacher-student ratio in the EU. Over 50,000 more technicians and administrative staff are needed to reach the EU average. However, recruiting and retaining new educators in these conditions is increasingly difficult if not impossible.

Noting that the UN Recommendations on the Teaching Profession provide an “alternative narrative to the neoliberal vision of schools and teachers as means to address the needs of the market”, Graziamaria Pistorino, National Secretary of FLC CGIL, stressed that the Recommendations are an essential tool for union advocacy for educators’ rights. “We feel stronger in our dialogue with government institutions because now we have on our side a high-level document signed by the ILO, the UN and UNESCO”, Pistorino added.

The Recommendations and the broader Go Public! Fund Education campaign provide opportunities for unions to raise awareness of teachers’ rights and the challenges they are facing, to build and strengthen alliances across society for public education.

“Ultimately, the Recommendations can be used to create opportunities for public discussion, to raise a social debate within national contexts, and design strong political action based on a vision of school founded on the values of democracy, peace and social justice that characterise our identity as democratic trade union organisations”, Pistorino concluded.

Portugal: Mobilising to end the teacher shortage

The teacher shortage has reached alarming levels in Portugal, with tens of thousands of students affected. The crisis will only get worse in the following years as more teachers retire.

The Go Public! Fund Education campaign is supporting the work of EI member organisation FENPROF to end the teacher shortage. The United Nations Recommendations for a strong and resilient teaching profession strengthen FENPROF’s advocacy.

“By giving credit to our positions and demands, the UN Recommendations are a powerful tool to be used not only in mobilising our members but also in engaging the education community to put pressure on the government to take urgent action to invest in teachers and in public education”, stated Manuela Mendonça, FENPROF President and member of the EI Executive Board.

The recommendations around funding, social dialogue and collective bargaining, working conditions, the dignity of the profession, agency and autonomy are particularly relevant to the union’s work.

Spain: More funding for teachers and education is imperative

Spanish unionists from - F.E.CC.OO., STES-Intersindical, and FeSP-UGT Enseñanza – took part in the Go Public! meeting in Athens to discuss the development of the campaign in their country.

With education funding at 4.6% of GDP, Spain is investing less in education than the OECD average. Over 50,000 new teachers are needed to lower the teacher-student ratio at all levels of education, especially in urban areas.

Recruitment and retainment are made difficult by the high level of bureaucracy causing stress and anxiety among teachers, precarious employment (over 25% of teaching jobs are precarious), poor working conditions, and low salaries. Alarmingly, the unions report that over the last 14 years, teachers in Spain have lost 22% of their purchasing power.

Through the Go Public! Fund Education campaign, Spanish unions are leveraging the power of the global education union movement to effect change for teachers and students at home. The unions are standing up for public education and fighting against privatisation and far-right policies in the sector.

The campaign allows unions to join forces and build alliances in support of their advocacy. The United Nations Recommendations are particularly useful in social dialogue, supporting the unions’ calls for more financing for education, good working conditions and salaries for all education workers, more recognition and a higher status for teachers in order to attract more people to the profession.

Cyprus: Education systems and teachers under pressure

Because of the division of Cyprus, teachers on either side of the border face different challenges, but the underfunding of education and weak social dialogue are shared concerns and obstacles to quality education and a strong teaching profession.

The Cyprus Greek Teachers' Organisation (POED) warned that the public education system is undermined by cost cutting, a lack of social dialogue, an outdated infrastructure, and increasing bureaucratic tasks for educators. All these factors fuel a growing teacher shortage on the island, with many young teachers leaving the profession. The POED has joined the Go Public! Fund Education campaign to advocate for public education and the teaching profession.

Welcoming the global mobilisation, POED President Myria Vasiliou stated that “it is important at the international level to support and complement the efforts made at the local level. The slogan Go Public! Fund Education carries great meaning. It creates momentum, and at the same time, we can invoke it as part of an international movement. It contributes to strengthening trade union organisations so they can assert themselves based on their own needs”.

Underfunding is also threatening public education and the teaching profession on the Turkish Cypriot side. EI member organisations KTÖS and KTOEÖS stressed that over 60% of school buildings are over 50 years old with insufficient basic maintenance. Classrooms are overcrowded especially in urban areas. Worse still, many schools continue to function in containers instead of proper buildings.

The teaching workforce is also under strain. The Ministry of Education has consistently failed to recruit sufficient new permanent teachers to account for the growing number of students. The shortage stands at 15% across primary schools alone. Many new teachers are hired on temporary or insecure contracts based only on their political background.

EI member organisations expressed concern about the state of social dialogue between unions and the Turkish Cypriot government. Social dialogue mechanisms, once formalised, are now often bypassed or reduced to symbolic gestures.

Political interference, both domestic and from external authorities, has compromised the autonomy of the educational system. Since 2022, unions have noted and protested against an erosion of secular principles, including the promotion of religious content in previously secular subjects. Gender equality programmes have been sidelined, and attempts have been made to introduce gender-segregated educational activities.

“The Ministry of Education and the government are putting pressure on our teachers who are fighting for their rights and better working conditions. They are attacking trade unions and the right to unionise and are aiming to take away teachers' rights and freedoms,” warned KTOEÖS President Selma Eylem.

To address all these challenges, EI member organisation in Northern Cyprus are mobilising around the Go Public! Fund Education campaign and are advocating for the United Nations Recommendations to be implemented.

France: A poorly paid and exhausted profession facing continued austerity

Over the last 25 years, public spending on secondary education in France has fallen by 20%, bringing the public education system to the brink of collapse, according to Julien Farges, SNES-FSU National Secretary.

The education workforce has experienced a massive decrease in purchasing power caused by continued austerity measures and repeated salary freezes. The gains made through career progression are often wiped out by wage freezes and inflation. Teachers also face excessive working hours, large class sizes, and increasing administrative tasks. The resulting teacher shortage is on the rise.

In a bid to address the shortage, the government has lowered the requirements for joining the profession from a Master’s level to two and a half years after the baccalaureate. These stop-gap measures not only ignore the real causes of the crisis, they undermine the profession and the quality of education in France.

For the 2026 budget, the French government has announced a further €40 billion in public spending cuts which will have a considerable impact on the education workforce. On May 13, teachers went on strike against austerity, to maintain recruitment at Master’s level, and for better salaries and working conditions.

“We know the problems and, with the Go Public! Fund Education campaign and the United Nations Recommendations, we also know the solutions. Politicians must have the courage to implement them. As unions, we must push them to take action. SNES-FSU defends free quality inclusive public education. To achieve it, important public investments are required and this demands greater fiscal justice”, Farges stressed.

In addition to countries in Southern Europe, the campaign is also active in Albania and Tajikistan.

Educators across all regions of the world are rallying for the Go Public! Fund Education campaign. The World Congress, the highest decision-making body of Education International, fully endorsed the campaign, making it a priority for EI and its member organisations.