On 27 June 2018, EFEE General Secretary, Daniel Wisniewski and ETUCE Executive Director, Susan Flocken met Mr. Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner responsible for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport. During this first meeting, representatives of both social partner organizations in education underlined the most important issues challenges currently present in the education sector, like recruitment of teachers, attractiveness of teachers’ profession, demographic changes, inclusion of migrants into education systems, as well as the role of education in fostering EU common values and social inclusion.
In addition to this, the participants discussed the involvement of social partners in different European initiatives, especially Education and Training 2020 Working Groups and the European Education Summit. Both the Commissioner and social partners agreed that employers and trade union representatives should have a strong delegation in all these activities. Finally, it was also decided that this high-level panel between the Commissioner and European social partners should be repeated at least once a year, in order to exchange main priorities between the partis involved. The next meeting between the Commissioner, EFEE General Secretary and ETUCE Executive Director is planned for first half of 2019. Michal Rozsival Jersey