Solutions to improve OSH conditions of teachers in the Swiss region of Romandy

Published:

ETUCE member organisation ‘Syndicat des Enseignants romands – SER’ in Western Switzerland has recently conducted a survey on the status of occupational health and safety of teachers in Romandy, Switzerland. The survey report has now been published and reveals important concerns:

  • Nearly 66% of the teachers consulted reported that they experienced  work-related stress;
  • 41% of the teachers consulted reported that they were not able to ‘disconnect’ from their jobs;
  • 3 out of 5 of the teachers consulted have experienced a degradation of their health conditions because of poor occupational health and safety (OSH) standards within their workplaces;
  • Half of the teachers consulted linked the deterioriation of their health conditions to their professional duties.

Based on these findings, SER proposes to the ‘Conférence intercantonale de l'instruction publique de la Suisse romande et du Tessin (CIIP)’, the following measures  to improve the OSH conditions of teachers in Switzerland in general and in the Romandy region in particular:

  • Improvement of the working conditions to minimise the risks of ‘burn-out’ and reduce stress-factors in the workplace; 
  • Establishment and strengthening of assistance and counseling for teachers in all Swiss cantons, under the guidance of accredited  experts;
  • Clear and precise definition of the teaching activity;
  • Revision of the relevant legal texts to improve the rate teacher/students through multiple measures (co-education, student-specific support, drop in class size, etc.) in both comprehensive and secondary schools.

ETUCE supports SER in its demands for better working-conditions and higher OSH standards for all teachers. Especially, ETUCE backs SER in its demands to include the problem of health conditions of all teachers and education professionals in schools in the 2015-2019 legislative programme of the Conférence intercantonale de l'instruction publique de la Suisse romande et du Tessin (CIIP), and its subsequent programmes.

In parallel, ETUCE also encourages to take into consideration the “2016 Joint Practical Guidelines on How to Prevent and Combat Psychosocial Hazards and work-related stress in Education” which ETUCE developed jointly with the European Federation of Education Employers (EFFE). .

To find out more about SER’s activity, please click here.