The general secretary of Ctera, Sonia Alesso, said that the Minister of Education, Jaime Perczyk, “committed” on Thursday that “there will be no type of adjustment in educational investment” when referring to the first joint meeting held with the teachers’ unions ahead of the start of classes, in which -he maintained- although the salary discussion itself has not yet begun, some criteria were raised.
“Next week we will continue the discussion. Regarding wages, we say that wages cannot be below inflation, and there will be a specific commission to address this issue”Alesso asserted in statements made this Friday to El Destape Radio.
In this sense, he specified: “Yesterday we did not talk about numbers but we raised two criteria. One is that we have to have an open parity like last year, and, on the other hand, that the authorities must warn the situation of the teacher’s salary that came losing against inflation for four years.
“It is quite a job to recover what was lost during the four years of the Government of Mauricio Macri, in which the teaching parity was canceled, as well as retaking the law of financing and educational investment”
However, he indicated that from Ctera they know that “it is quite a job to recover what was lost during the four years of the Government of Mauricio Macri, in which the teaching parity was canceled, as well as retaking the law of financing and educational investment.”
“The minister promised that there will be no type of adjustment in educational investment,” said the leader.
On Thursday, Perczyk and the five teachers’ unions with national representation inaugurated the federal joint meeting for the sector, an occasion in which they agreed on a work agenda that will begin to be analyzed next week.
“The wage discussion has not started yet and it is a difficult issue,” Alesso said this morning and valued the fact that both last year and the current year the joint discussion began “early.”
He even detailed that both last year and now emphasis was placed “on the protocol” due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On Thursday, they discussed in particular “working conditions, safe schools, vaccination, teacher training and an issue that we have been working on last year, which is the collective agreement,” he explained.
“We saw in Europe that, with the Omicron variant, there were many infected children in schools and the serious cases are those who are not vaccinated” so “having a forecast of infections” is also evaluated
Regarding the issue of “safe schools, next week there will be a meeting of the Ministry of Health with Education to accelerate vaccination as much as possible, also to have alternatives for children and young people who have comorbidities and cannot have full attendance, as well as to have a forecast of infections”.
“We saw in Europe that, with the Omicron variant, there were many infected children in schools and the serious cases are those who are not vaccinated” so “having a forecast of infections” is also evaluated, added the head of Ctera.
On the other hand, Alesso said that “most teachers have been vaccinated, some are pending a third dose.”
“We also talked about investment in schools, investment in computers was increased and there will be a very high number of computers delivered this year and also a commitment to invest in quality masks, gel alcohol,” he said.
The agenda also included “investment in infrastructure” since “we are concerned that we have precarious buildings in some places, and that prevents cross ventilation, the space between children and that is problematic,” he said.
In addition, it was announced that “there will also be delivery of school books.”
