The role of unions in developing a skilled workforce

by Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

As we slowly recover from the worst economic recession since the 1920s, labour markets around the world remain turbulent. We are facing more social and economic inequality with wages stagnating and many people dropping out of the workforce entirely.

How can the American Federation of Teachers and other trade unions around the world help?

First, unions should be viewed as part of the solution, not as something to overcome. Labour-management collaboration is essential to developing skilled workers and, in turn, to creating better jobs and higher salaries. Workers need to be represented at the bargaining table and—regardless of the trade or profession—unions can be an important partner. That is the key to developing a flexible, smart workforce ready and equipped to be full partners with management.

If our workforce is going to thrive in the 21st century, we need to begin by changing much about our approach to education—from inside the classroom and larger school environment, to how we care for children, to how labour and management work together across the world.

In every country, a flourishing economy requires a strong education foundation as well as the ability to innovate and to communicate. It also requires teachers who are prepared and supported on every level and who are invested in helping students succeed in school and in life.

In Singapore, for example, where I spent time with teachers and students earlier this year, schools are focused on growth and achievement. However, as I observed numerous diverse groups of children deeply engaged in learning, I saw nothing that could be construed as “teaching to the test”—something that educators in the United States continue to contend with. In Singapore and in other countries with high-performing education systems, schools have listened to their teachers and collaborated with them to ensure the best education practices are implemented.

Additionally, the OECD can work with education unions to collaborate on important skills-developing issues, including:

• Global teaching standards—These include guidelines to ensure high-functioning, well-prepared, continuously improving teachers in every classroom. However, teachers cannot do this alone. They should be given the continuous support and respect they deserve –which, in large part, means treating education as a shared responsibility.
• Educational  equality—We can address issues of educational inequality worldwide through expanding and enhancing the successful efforts of countries in which every child receives a good education regardless of economic status. We also need to level the playing field for poor children by ensuring the availability of early childhood education and wrap-around services. We can address these issues before they become significant obstacles to learning.
• Curriculum—Ensuring a well-rounded, robust curriculum that prepares students for the future is essential to advancing workforce preparation. A child’s studies should focus on accessing and sorting information to solve complex problems and develop higher-level thinking skills, as opposed to finding answers to simple questions learned by rote. Businesses can help prepare students through mentoring and internships, while at school we can offer more project-based learning to ensure the mastery of skills sets.
• Models of collaboration—The OECD and unions can disseminate examples of labour and management working together to solve problems. Sharing best practices and successful partnerships can help lead to greater and more effective co-operation.

Education by itself will not address the jobs crisis, nor can education by itself address inequality. But without education, the fight for jobs and fair societies cannot be won. We’re excited to take part in the process.

Links:
Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC)
American Federation of Teachers
See also: OECD Skills Strategy

Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org

More blogs with Randi Weingarten:
‘An obligation to systematise success’
‘Internationalist, not isolationist’
Photo credit: Child hands on top of each other / Shutterstock

A View from the Teachers’ Summit

By John Bangs

Special consultant on OECD issues for Education International, the global body for all teachers’ organisations

I have two hopes for this summit: The fact that the number of countries and unions participating in the summit this year is up by a third compared with last year reflects the increasing understanding that it is teacher policies that matter. Their ability, their confidence and their self-efficacy are crucial. I hope that the kind of dead-end discussion about how choice and the market yield better performance begins to fade away.

My second hope is that the Dutch government continues this summit in 2013 as it has offered to do, and that we continue to build greater dialogue into the summit. South Africa is attending as an observer country this year. This is absolutely the right thing to do: to invite countries that are determined to improve their education systems to enter the dialogue with those whose education systems have improved, to encourage a dialogue between developed and developing countries. There is the dawning realisation that you cannot improve without dialogue; you have to be constantly learning.

Look at the controversy about teacher evaluations. We discussed this issue during last year’s summit. If you learn from places like Finland, Singapore and Hong Kong, you see that enhancing teachers’ self-efficacy and capacity is the way to go. That is done among colleagues and peers. The issue of pay and punishment are not central to driving performance; and publicising the results of individual teacher evaluations is insane. There is a better model—which is about development, not punishment.

Unions are essential participants at the summit. Strong teachers’ unions are an engine, not a hindrance, to reform. The success of the last year’s summit has really put the critics who say that teachers’ unions are inevitably the obstacles to reform on the back foot. They’re still there, they’re still wrong, and they’re on the defensive. This kind of summit brings the words ‘social partnership’ centre stage. The breadth of knowledge that unions can contribute to the dialogue has been highly underestimated by governments. Through Education International, for example, unions have been engaged in deep and fundamental exchanges of information about education systems. Governments often have short institutional memories about what works in education reform; unions have enormous resources and have long institutional memories. Unions can give governments the knowledge capital to work with.

I’m particularly fascinated by two areas that we’ll be discussing in this year’s summit. One is leadership; and I’m glad the agenda has shifted from focusing only on school principals to the understanding that all teachers can show leadership.  The second is on 21st century skills: What do students and teachers need to know? How do we evaluate them? That, I’m sure, will make for an absolutely fascinating discussion.

Links:

International Summit on the Teaching Profession

Education International

OECD Pointer for Policy Makers on Improving School Leadership: Policy and Practice

OECD publications on teachers
Follow the summit on twitter #ISTP2012

 Photo credit: © Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock