There are fewer and fewer teachers, the topic was discussed at the Regional Meeting on Public Education
According to data released by UNESCO, there are fewer and fewer teachers in the world. This would be due to the low investment made by the States.
The situation is more worrying in countries on the European continent, but this phenomenon has also been observed in Oceania, North America and South America.
Last December, the city of Montevideo hosted a regional meeting where the future perspectives of public education were analyzed in depth.
“Union leaders from across the continent gathered to discuss the direction to follow in defense of popular education” confirmed the Professor Luis Fratti.
“Some direct consequences that were known through data and documents, for example, according to UNESCO, a shortage of teachers is expected around the world, of about 44 million” revealed.
“This has closely to do with the lack of investment that most States have made in education. The shortage of teachers is affecting countries in Europe, North America, Australia, but also Latin America” he assured. “For this last case, according to UNESCO, it is expected that there could be a shortage of 3 and a half million teachers, therefore we have the obligation to do everything in our power to ensure that we take care of the future of the profession because without “The profession is ultimately the students who suffer because they will be denied a qualified teacher in every classroom every day and in every class.” stated the President of ADES Cerro Largo.
He recalled that prior to the beginning of the current Government Administration, it had been warned that the reforms that were going to be carried out in education, established in the Urgent Consideration Law, would lay the foundations for this setback. “Five years later we are seeing it” he synthesized. “The lack of investment results in the general deterioration of public education as it occurred during this period of Government. We will suffer the consequences in another period as long as the coming Administrations have the political will to reverse all these negative aspects that have taken place in public education in Uruguay and other countries such as what is happening in Argentina.” he pointed out.
A YEAR OF MOBILIZATIONS
“2024 was a year of much mobilization, of much action by the union to try to preserve the labor rights of teachers and the right to competition that emanates directly from the teaching statute” Professor Fratti explained.
“At first there was a chaotic contest with tremendous irregularities. The union, trying to establish their legal parameters, mobilized. “Through several instances and bipartite negotiations we managed to make this contest favorable to the majority of teachers.” reported.
He said that the way it had been implemented, the majority of teachers who passed the contest were not going to be able to complete it in a minimum of 8 hours. “After arduous negotiations and mobilizations, modifications were introduced allowing the vast majority to be implemented in 8 hours. From now on, Secondary School is one of the organizations that has the most effective teachers with the peace of mind that this represents” highlighted the member of the Executive of the National Federation of Secondary Education Teachers.
