This Wednesday the national general strike of public education was held, to which private education joined (a date on which, in addition, the National Day of the Private Education Worker is commemorated), and which included a massive march along Avenida 18 de July.
The “National Educational March” was held under the slogan: “For wage recovery, job creation, decent budget and comprehensive education for a true democratic transformation.”
In this framework, the general secretary of the Uruguayan Federation of Teachers and Primary Education Workers (FUM-TEP), Elbia Pereira, expressed that it is inadmissible that the government has announced that the next Rendering of Accounts will be “zero spending”, but then he said that “there will be something, without clarifying anything else.”
The union leader pointed out that there are only 15 days left for the Executive to send the budget message to Parliament and “there is no information on what CODICEN has requested, nor on what the government offers.”
The education unions demand 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for teaching, plus 1% for research and development, a request that they have been making to different governments.
“For this approach we have always been reviled. Today it seems that our claim was necessary and, therefore, there must be clarity when it comes to addressing the need for a larger budget for education,” Pereira told the PIT.CNT website.
31.50 pesos per student for food
On the other hand, he questioned that by cutting the Budget “the positions are redistributed and, therefore, the groups become more numerous”, a situation that is clearly verified in Primary.
Pereira also stated that “months ago the General Directorate of Primary has been called to adjust by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) the food items that it sends to schools, because the same item is being sent as in December last year ” .
“Today, with the same batch as in December, it is impossible to adequately feed the little ones. With 31.50 pesos, adequate food for the student cannot be met, ”he sentenced.
In another order, the education unions do not know if there will be appointment of teaching and non-teaching positions, while they demand more service assistants and more teachers.
“What we do know is that the application of article 4 of the Budget Law is not proposed, which establishes that the recovery of the purchasing power of lost wages will materialize throughout the period,” Pereira remarked.
Likewise, he rejected that there are “acts of persecution against the education unions.”
