SPAIN/FILE: Teachers to stage a two-day strike over austerity-driven plans to make teachers spend more time in the classroom

Record ID: 341128

  • Title: SPAIN/FILE: Teachers to stage a two-day strike over austerity-driven plans to make teachers spend more time in the classroom
  • Date: 20th September 2011
  • Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF STUDENTS IN CLASS
  • Embargoed: 5th October 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Education,Politics,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVA1J5TB5XCRDMD7V7L4TR2O5CGA
  • Story Text: Spain was braced on Monday (September 19) for two days of teachers' strikes in state secondary schools in Madrid to protest against government plans to make them work an extra two hours a week as the country seeks to implement painful deficit cuts and control state spending.
    The two-day strike is scheduled for September 20 and 21.
    Carmen Guaita, vice president of the teachers union ANPE, said the cuts would mean between eight and 15 thousand temporary teachers joining the 4 million unemployed in Spain, which at 20.9 percent has the European Union's highest jobless rate.
    "In one year, Spanish teachers wages have been reduced, their pensions conditions have been cut down, their pensions have been frozen. The state and regional budgets for education have been reduced by 2 billion euros, " she said.
    Education budgets are controlled by regional governments, many of whom are struggling with burgeoning debt loads after a decade of reckless spending, prompting concern about Spain's ability to slash its budget deficit and avoid sinking into a debt crisis like Greece or Ireland.
    Guaita said the cuts will undermine the education system, which suffers from one of the highest drop-out rates in Europe with about 30 percent of school leavers aged under 16.
    "Results of education are visible in the short term. Obviously education budgets are very large. It cannot be otherwise and in the present they could look like costs and we are not realising that in a medium-term they are an investment, not costs. Future investment in professional qualification of young people from Spain, fewer people pushed into precarious employment in a competitive country in the labour market," she said.
    The point of disagreement between the regional government and the teacher is the extension of school hours announced in some regions from 18 to 20 hours per week, but Carmen Perez-Llorca Vice Minister of Education in Madrid said that the measure will not compromise the education quality.
    "There are absolutely no cuts. What we are asking teachers is for an extra effort to work 20 hours instead of working 18 hours as before. This means that in some cases, in some schools, not in all of them, this year it will not be necessary to hire as many temporary teachers as last year in order to complete school hours because state school teachers will be those who will complete the timetable. But this does not involve any cuts. It is neither a loss of quality."
    A massive teachers rally have been called in Madrid on October 22.
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