Ei-iE

FESEN, Education International’s member organisation in Togo, is working to identify ways of increasing public funding for education. The union organised a diagnostic and planning workshop during which education unionists drew up an action plan for implementing the goals of the Go Public! Fund Education campaign during 2025.

A challenging trade union environment

During the workshop held in Lomé on 22 and 23 February 2025, with financial support from the Swedish Teachers’ Union, FESEN and its ten affiliated organisations stressed the tense environment in which trade unions operate, and the difficulties in ensuring respect for trade union rights. As a result, new recruits to the teaching profession are increasingly reluctant to unionise.

Two years ago, 1,394 headteachers were demoted and reassigned for taking part in strike action led by the FESEN. While the vast majority have been reinstated, 18 of them have not been returned to their posts although discussions are still underway with the education authorities to secure their reinstatement. At the end of 2025, the Memorandum of Understanding underpinning the five-year social truce signed in 2021 in Togo’s education sector will also be assessed and rediscussed.

A deficient social dialogue framework

FESEN explained that it was working with seven other education federations. With no mechanism to assess the actual representativeness of the various federations and to give them the voice they deserve, the authorities are able to use so-called majority positions to give their decisions a veneer of union approval. The existing consultation framework is clearly inadequate. Furthermore, the unions are not involved in staff management operations, making it difficult to assess these processes.

Strength through financial independence

Despite the difficult context, the FESEN has nonetheless been able to rely on a bedrock of loyal members, whose dues are collected through an independent direct debit mechanism. Although modest, this revenue provides the union with independence in planning its activities and has enabled it to finance the construction and equipping of its head office from its own funds over the last three years. Trade union activists regularly travel to the regions to hold general meetings at which the needs of the grassroot members can be voiced. This work on the ground also provides an opportunity to encourage new people to join the FESEN.

Public education reform

For the union federation, public investment in Togo’s education system is clearly inadequate, despite the steady increase. The presence of private schools remains very strong, especially in certain areas. Within the private education sector, a minority are denominational schools that have existed for decades – and some of the teachers are paid through state funding.

FESEN also acknowledged that despite the wage increases in public schools, teachers’ pay still needs to rise in order to make the profession more attractive. Working conditions are often difficult and classrooms overcrowded.

The lack of sufficient infrastructure has meant that some schools have had to introduce ‘double shifts’, with one group of pupils studying in the morning and another in the afternoon. This has an impact on teachers’ workloads, with some having to teach both groups.

FESEN campaigns for public education

FESEN has therefore decided to structure its action and to deploy EI’s Go Public! Fund Education campaign in Togo.

The union intends to build a solid advocacy campaign based on research that will be conducted by an independent researcher, who will gather data on the public/private landscape in education, particularly in relation to public funding. The research report will serve as a basis for FESEN teams, including those in the regions, to acquire a solid understanding of the role of central funding in education and the challenges in terms of the recruitment, training and remuneration of education workers.

FESEN also plans to rally partners to support its advocacy campaign, starting with the United Nations bodies in Togo, which will be invited to advocate for the UN recommendations to be implemented in education policies.

Several of these recommendations, such as the need to protect and improve the status and dignity of the teaching profession (recommendation 14), the need for publicly funded high-quality initial teacher training (recommendation 20), and the need for coordinated and institutionalised social dialogue (recommendation 48), were identified as crucial at the Lomé workshop.

In addition to advocacy and capacity-building for its active members, the FESEN intends to launch a communication campaign and to tour all the country’s prefectures to mobilise its union base.