Ei-iE

The High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession was convened by the United Nations Secretary General and brought together academics, ministers of education and labour, former presidents, employers’ organisations, teachers and students and their unions.

This paper offers an overview on funding of higher and further education across the globe. Drawing on the best available comparative data, it shows how education is funded in different ways. It discusses, for example, how much different countries spend on higher education, how spending has changed over time, how...

Higher education (HE) faces a complex landscape of digital technology services, shaping educators’ labour and working conditions in new ways. Two particular issues are ownership of intellectual property (IP) and academic freedom when using digital education services such as edtech platforms. Edtech platforms complicate questions of academic ownership of content...

Teachers' unions, students, and academic support staff are key players in promoting social dialogue on access to study materials in higher education and fostering transformative action. This toolkit aims to provide unions with basic knowledge about Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education, as well as practical ideas and examples...

This study investigates how clashing copyright regimes affect the work of cross-border teaching in higher education. It explores constraints on pedagogy both from copyright policies at the national level and from conflicts between regimes internationally. As the recent pandemic demonstrated, and as previous research has shown, pedagogy requires flexibility that...

The status of teachers remains a concern in many jurisdictions. Teachers are aware that holding the same qualifications or levels of training as other professions does not bring the same status, despite teaching and facilitating learning being complex work that requires significant expertise.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a state of emergency engulfed higher education. The crisis of mass campus closures and a rapid ‘pivot’ to online learning became the context for attempts by private actors and commercial organisations to reconfigure the sector.

Since the late 20th century, Latin American higher education has witnessed two major processes: firstly, considerable expansion – a sustained increase in enrolment, a growing number of institutions, and growth and diversification of study programmes, levels and qualifications; secondly, a decline in public funding.

Elsevier are the largest and most powerful scholarly publisher, a status achieved through a long history of mergers and acquisitions and rigorously capitalistic business practices. The core issues surrounding Elsevier are that it operates its business primarily through charging for what should be public knowledge and education, with aggressive pricing...

The prevailing discourse on higher education has raised a voice concerning quality, equality, and equity—all centered on students. Surprisingly, such discussions have remained relatively silent on another set of actors crucial to the teaching/learning process: higher education personnel.

The present joint action programme is proposed by the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU), the European Students’ Union (ESU), and Education International (EI) to their members and partners, in order to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 related goals, which the United Nations...

Creating a positive working environment is key to the future success of higher education across Europe. Self-direction and autonomy are positive influences in the work context. Those who feel supported at work will enjoy their experience, like their jobs and have high levels of job satisfaction. The capacity to form...

In this study, academics across nine countries in Europe identified a number of key issues that impacted upon their working environment. These included the impact of decreased funding; the difficulties experienced in forming supportive relationships; negative experiences of academic life in the initial years; a deterioration in working conditions; the...

The Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendation concerning Teachers (CEART) is a joint committee of the ILO and UNESCO composed of 12 Experts. It meets every three years and is charged with monitoring the implementation of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers and the...

This report is based on an extensive survey (responses from 73 Education International (EI) member organisations from all regions). It reveals the threats to the status of teachers from misguided “reforms” leading to precarious working conditions for teachers and education workers and curbing teachers' professional development, professional autonomy, social dialogue,...