ILO Activities

The ILO is known for its long-standing work on vocational training policy and structures, but it also has an active sectoral programme in education. The ILO's special competence lies in its detailed technical knowledge of what constitutes good employment practices -- recruitment, career development, salaries, working conditions and labour relations -- as the basis for education reform and quality. Since the 1950s the work has focused on researching, promoting and sharing information on standards and best practices. It is important (though often overlooked in education sector work) because the salaries of educational personnel take up 60-95% of governments' annual expenditures on education; it is highest in developing countries.

International Sectoral Meetings

In 1981, 1991 and 1996, the ILO organised international meetings on the education sector. The conclusions of these meetings constitute a consensus among the ILO's members on best practices affecting teachers, other educational personnel and the organization of educational systems. The 1996 meeting dealt with the impact of structural adjustment on educational personnel. Copies of the background reports to that Meeting and its Note on the Proceedings may be ordered from ILO publications.

From 10-14 April 2000 the ILO hosted its most recent sectoral meeting in education, the Joint Meeting on Lifelong Learning in the Twenty-first Century: The Changing Roles of Educational Personnel. As follow-up to that meeting, a virtual conference, Lifelong Learning: Education, teachers and technology, was held 12 June-14 July 2000.

The ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers
and the Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts

This international Recommendation was adopted in 1966 by a special intergovernmental conference convened by UNESCO in association with the ILO, after years of research and study by the two organizations. It contains nearly 150 guidelines on educational policy, curricula, teacher training, employment and working conditions and teachers' participation in decision-making. Along with relevant international labour standards, the ILO promotes its use among governments, private school employers and teachers' unions in decisions on policies, legislation and collective bargaining agreements affecting teachers, principals and inspectors from pre-primary to secondary and technical education.

The Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts (CEART) meets once every three years to monitor the effective application of the Recommendation and specific problems. The Report of its 1997 meeting focused especially on: employment, career opportunities and retention of teachers; participation, consultation and collective bargaining in the teaching profession; education for teachers; and the status of women teachers in technical education and training. It also reviews allegations by teachers' organizations of non-application of the Recommendation; at its 1997 meeting cases from nine countries in Africa, Latin America and Europe were examined. The Report issued in March 1999 examines allegations concerning the Czech Republic.

A separate Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel adopted by UNESCO in 1997 applies to university teachers. It's application will be monitored for the first time by the CEART at its 2000 Session.

The CEART held its Seventh session 11-15 September 2000 at the ILO in Geneva, and the report of that session is now available.

World Teachers' Day

At the initiative of UNESCO, World Teachers' Day is marked each year since 1994 on 5 October in recognition of the adoption of the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation in 1966. Promotional events to focus attention on the centrality of teachers to quality education are held in countries throughout the world. The most recent World Teachers' Day Message signed by the Director-Generals of the ILO and UNESCO and by the executive heads of other international organisations concerned with education and teachers emphasizes the role of teachers as agents of social change, the need for high quality teaching conditions and the importance of teachers' participation in decision-making.

Regional and national meetings

A series of tripartite seminars, symposia and workshops on teachers and education has been run with UNESCO since 1989. The meetings provide a forum for dialogue between governments, private school employers and teachers' unions on pressing problems facing education and educational workers in the countries concerned. They serve also to study how the provisions of the Recommendation, international labour standards, ILO sectoral meeting conclusions and UNESCO standards/policies can be concretely used in devising solutions to these problems. Such meetings have been held for French- or English-speaking countries of Africa in Abidjan, Accra, Harare, and Senegal, for Arab States in Amman, for Central America in San José, for the Caribbean in Kingston, and for the Pacific in Nadi, Fiji. On the request of ILO contituents, national workshops have been organized in Mauritius, Romania and the United Republic of Tanzania.

Technical advice

The ILO has extensive documentation and knowledge of employment practices, working conditions, and labour relations structures in education. This information is shared on request with government officials, trade unions, employers and researchers looking for solutions to problems in countries of widely differing socio-economic levels.

Advice on restructuring education personnel policies and administration (especially concerning teachers) is also available on request. Technical advisory services are usually carried out as one component of a larger education reform programme. They may be offered as part of multi-agency technical cooperation, a multidisciplinary team effort of the ILO, national projects dealing with very specific problems of educational workers, or a combination of these. Such services are equally available to governments, employers' and workers' organizations, subject to available financing. Experience shows that ILO technical advice in this field functions best when all interested parties -- principally government education authorities, private school employers, and teachers' unions -- are implicated in problem-solving efforts. Since 1997, the ILO has provided detailed assistance to South Africa on education labour relations reforms, advice to Argentina on teacher career reforms, and comments on the draft Labour Code of the Russian Federation covering teachers.

Links to Education Activities in other ILO departments

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour: IPEC
- How IPEC works with teachers
- Action against Child Labour : The Importance of Free and Universal Primary Education, World Education Forum Dakar, Senegal, 26 - 28 April 2000
- From Exploitation to Education : Action against the Worst Forms of Child Labour through Education and Training, World Education Forum Dakar, Senegal, 26 - 28 April 2000

InFocus Programme on Socio-Economic Security
- Minimum Income for School Attendance (MISA) Initiative

Employment Strategy
- World Employment Report 2001: Life at Work in the Information Economy. This report examines the impact of the new information and communication technologies on life at work at a time when the global employment situation still remains of considerable concern. Two sections are of particular interest to the education sector: Education matters most of all and Lifelong learning in schools, first, then at work.

InFocus Programme on skills, knowledge and employability
- Towards a new Recommendation on Human Resources Training and Development

Links to Labour Standards information in other ILO departments

ILO Conventions and Recommendations
- C182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999. Ratifications.
- R190 Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation, 1999.

National labour legislation (NATLEX database)
- National legislation dealing with teachers.

Committee of Freedom of Association
- Cases related to the education sector.