The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Teachers’ organizations mobilize during COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive economic, social and political disruption across the world as many countries locked down, sealed national borders, closed many public institutions and shuttered nonessential businesses in order to flatten the curve and try to control the spread of coronavirus.

As the spread of coronavirus was declared under control and health officials and governments worked to reopen their countries, the attention shifted to how this might be done safely. In many countries, this examination included the potential reopening of public school buildings.

Teachers’ unions around the world have collaborated with their members and others with the aim of improving school safety and creating a better society. The following examples have been selected from the Forward to School report authored by Education International, focusing on five different types of collaborations or coalitions with which teachers’ unions have engaged over the course of the pandemic.

WORKING WITH COMMUNITIES

Nepal

The World Bank Blog reported that more than eight million Nepalese students were unable to attend in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since many households in Nepal do not have access to computers or cable services but four out of five households have access to mobile telephone devices, the Nepal Teachers’ Association mobilized teacher members to work on the Every Home a School campaign, which featured a toll-free phone line for students. Education International reports that union members from more than 750 local committees reached out to students to share lessons and raise awareness about COVID-19.

Lebanon

Hussain Muhammad Jawad, president of the Public Primary School Teachers of Lebanon, reports that Lebanon has the highest number of Syrian refugees worldwide, including approximately 450,000 school-aged children. Approximately 176,000 of them attend public schools in Lebanon while the remainder access education through various aid agencies. When public schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lebanon Ministry of Education did not facilitate distance education for students in refugee camps. Instead, union members, who often worked extremely long hours and who were not paid during the lockdown, volunteered to prepare televised classes; support parents over the phone; and provide assignments, guidance and feedback to Syrian refugee children.

WORKING WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

Chile

As the pandemic unfolded in Chile, the Colegio de Profesoras Y Profesores de Chile (CPC) entered into ongoing dialogue with the medical association as well as meeting with the Chilean Paediatric Society and international epidemiologists to develop proposed health and safety guidelines for the reopening of Chilean schools. In October 2020, in response to insufficient measures to protect health and well-being by the Chilean government, the CPC, appealed for support to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. This appeal was done in coordination with the National Coordinator of Secondary Students, the Coordinator of Parents and Guardians for the Right to Education, and the National Council of Organizations of Education Assistants of Chile.

Kenya

The Kenya National Union of Teachers and the Universities Academic Staff Union, along with civil society organizations, worked together to issue a joint report to the Kenyan government with recommendations on safely reopening schools and educational institutions. The report included advice to postpone national examinations and to train teachers and lecturers on COVID-19–adapted pedagogies that adopt a focus on gender perspectives, disability issues and supports for COVID-19 survivors.

WORKING TOGETHER

Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association and the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, along with smaller unions, challenged the government of Zimbabwe’s plan to reopen schools for exams in June. The union coalition outlined that the return to school buildings was unsafe because COVID-19 infections were increasing in the country. The coalition took the government to court, and the court ruled in favour of the union. In September and October, teachers’ unions went on strike because teachers’ conditions of practice were so poor and their wages had been cut so severely they could not afford to travel to school or meet their basic needs. On Oct. 10, 2020, eight teachers’ unions issued a joint letter to the government. By November, Zimbabwe teachers had been on strike for at least three weeks.

Uruguay

Various education unions partnered up to address the needs of vulnerable students and their families. They collected and handed out solidarity baskets to three cooperatives consisting almost entirely of women heads of households with dependent children and sex workers. Participants included the Federación Uruguaya de Magisterio de Trabajadores de Educación Primaria, the National Federation of Secondary Education Teachers of Uruguay, the Uruguay Secretariat for Gender, Equity and Sexual Diversity of Plenario Intersindical de Trabajadores–Convención Nacional de Trabajadores.

WORKING WITH GOVERNMENT

Denmark

Denmark is widely recognized for its successful return to school as well as for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Foundational to the return to school was the high level of trust that already existed between the government, teachers’ unions and teachers due, in part, to the high level of consultation between teachers’ unions and the government throughout the pandemic. For example, when schools were shut down, the Danish government consulted with teachers and teachers’ unions as it drafted regulations for emergency teaching as well as set out the policy framework for when schools reopened.

Argentina

In Argentina, the government and the National Federation of Education Workers collaborated to achieve a landmark collective agreement in June 2020. The language of the collective agreement addressed teachers’ changing working conditions during the lockdown—workload in particular. This important agreement also defined for the first time the right to disconnect in recognition of the shifting boundaries and expectations that could occur during the move to emergency remote teaching.

WORKING WITH THEIR MEMBERS

Italy

In Italy, after the government announced that schools would be reopened, teachers’ unions mobilized their members to conduct more than 200 rallies online to protest the conditions of practice the government was proposing as well as its lack of action at the negotiating table. The online rallies were supported by approximately 400,000 education workers, showing massive support for their member organizations.

Canada

The Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) has engaged in several activities to advance the interests of teachers during COVID-19. Drawing on the pandemic survey created by the Alberta Teachers’ Association in the spring of 2020, the CTF sponsored a pan-Canadian survey to understand the impact of school closures on teachers, school leaders and students in terms of their well-being, the impact of emergency remote teaching and equity for students. In addition, the CTF has developed recommendations for public school reentry as well as lobbied the federal government for additional supports for teachers and students as schools reopened. The efforts of CTF, aided by the responses to the pandemic survey, helped secure up to two billion federal dollars to assist in reopening schools across Canada.

Education International, www.ei-ie.org/en/detail/16541/teachers-and-unesco-team-up-to-define-professionalism-for-teaching-and-learning-across-the-world