On March 20-21, 2017, the Executive Vice President of ESFTUG, Marina Alugishvili, the newly elected Speaker of Gender Equality took part in the Annual Meeting of the Gender Equality Standing Committee on European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) in Brussels. The ETUCE Gender Equality Standing Committee is an advisory body of the ETUCE managing committee which aims to share experience and approaches in the context of gender in the field of education in Europe, to prepare joint recommendations and present to ETUCE Committee members. 65 member and experts of the gender equality of ETUCE member organizations discussed the ETUCE resolution at the Belgrade Conference in 2016. In the form of working groups they received a package of recommendations for the purpose of determining the implementation of this resolution.

The discussion topics were to provide access to education for migrants and internally displaced persons, to prepare the recommendations dedicated to the relevant issues of gender equality and the elimination the challenges of extremism and xenophobia. The package of recommendations will be reviewed at the ETUCE managing committee summer meeting. Presentations on the ETUCE work programme by the European Director 2017-2020, Susan Flocken and the promotion of diversity in Education in the EI Arab countries by EI Deputy General Secretary Haldis Holst, stood out next to the update on the EI and ETUCE work in progress on equality issues.

With more than 65 participants attending the event, guest speakers included Montserrat Mir Roca, Confederal Secretary in charge of Gender equality from ETUC and Maurizio Mosca, Stakeholders Relations Office from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).