Communications Toolkit | 2026 World Education Support Personnel Day

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.

In 2026 we are focusing on gender justice. This reflects a structural reality across education systems worldwide: education support roles are highly feminised, systematically undervalued, and too often characterised by low pay, insecurity, and excessive workloads. They are also the targets of harassment and violence.

This gender injustice is not accidental—it is produced by austerity, privatisation, sexist labour markets, and the historic devaluation of care and support work:

Work that is feminised is underpaid and underprotected.
Insecure contracts and outsourcing disproportionately impact women.
Gender-based violence and harassment are present in education workplaces.
Racialised, Indigenous, migrant, disabled, and LGBTI+ women ESP face compounded discrimination.

Fighting for ESP rights is therefore a core feminist and trade union struggle.

Education International policy on Education Support Personnel (ESP)

Education support personnel are essential to quality public education and to safe, inclusive learning environments. Their work must be fully recognised and properly valued. Education International policy is clear: ESP must enjoy the same rights, status, pay, and working conditions as other education personnel with comparable qualifications and experience, as set out in the EI Declaration on the Rights and Status of ESP.

This Declaration also affirms that all aspects of ESP preparation, employment, and remuneration must be free from discrimination. However, unions consistently report that discrimination remains widespread. Women ESP — particularly those who are non‑white, Indigenous, LGBTI+, or living with disabilities — face unequal pay, insecure work, limited career progression, and exclusion from decision-making in education systems.

As recognised in the Aveiro Statement, education unions are key to organising for workplaces that are free from violence, harassment, and intimidation and for quality working conditions necessary for gender equality. The statement also calls for increased domestic and international public education financing and specific funding for education support personnel, to ensure regular salaries and fair working conditions.

Unions also play an essential role in defending the well-being of ESP. The EI World Congress Resolution 2024 on Teacher and ESP Well-being highlights the unmanageable workloads and demands that negatively impact the work‑life balance of ESP. These pressures disproportionately affect women due to unequal care responsibilities at work and at home. These challenges are further intensified by the growing use of artificial intelligence in education, often introduced without consultation, safeguards, or concern for workers’ rights.

Gender justice for ESP will not happen without organising. It requires strong unions, collective bargaining, and sustained action to secure fair pay, safe workplaces, manageable workloads, and full respect for the rights and dignity of all education support personnel.

Join us to mark World ESP Day!

Join us online for “ESP Day 2026: Unions Unite for Gender Justice” on 13 May 2026, 14:00-15:30 Brussels time. A key outcome of this meeting will be a message document on ESP and gender justice to inform our ESP representatives to the EI World Women’s Conference — ‘Rising united for gender justice: educating the world, leading change, fighting for democracy’. We will also hear from EI president Mugwena Maluleke and members from around the world.

Please register to attend the meeting and share the invitation with your colleagues.

Materials to use and share online

Hashtags: #ESPDay #ProudToBe

Thank you card:

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Video of EI President, Mugwena Maluleke, on the occasion of World ESP Day:

Quote cards:

EI President, Mugwena Maluleke

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EI Deputy General Secretary Cassandra Hallett