With the objective that in Panama 6% of the gross domestic product is used in the budget for the education sector, a new session of the national dialogue table began this Thursday afternoon, which takes place at the Cristo Sembrador Center, district of Penonome, Cocle province.
Representatives of Panamanian social movements and the Executive Branch, headed this time by the Minister of Education, Maruja Gorday de Villalobos, remain present at this session.
There are also the representatives of the Bastión Oriente Chiricano, the United People for Life Alliance and the National Alliance for the Rights of the Organized People (Anadepo).
The first to support their position on the change in the investment policy in Panamanian education were the spokespersons of the United People for Life Alliance, who highlighted the small budget that the Ministry of Education allocates to investment in infrastructure and investments. They also highlighted that the bulk of their budget is to pay payroll.
For his part, the leader of the Association of Teachers of Panama, Fernando Ábrego, recalled that more than 21 dialogues have been held in the country for Panamanian education.
He stressed that the Panamanian system has 48 thousand teachers, who require constant preparation and emphasized that 10% of teachers of retirement age remain in the system due to low pensions.
Gorday de Villalobos, for his part, stressed that Panama has a country commitment to guarantee education with equity.
The official also revealed that the Ministry of Education began an evaluation of the personnel hired to achieve savings in the budget.
Gorday de Villalobos reiterated that the entity detected more than 10,000 retired teachers who are still in the public education system.
Another point detailed by the minister is that the entity she directs has a total of 10.9 million in expired terms.
He also recalled that the ministry had to hire 300 additional teachers to be able to serve the students who migrated from the private to the public sector.
The dialogue table decided after 8:30 pm, they form a technical subcommittee to analyze the proposal on education that has 17 points. Teachers’ leaders pointed out discrepancies between the figures they handled and that of the representatives of the Executive.
At 1:10 am, this Friday, it was reported that the education and medication subcommittees agreed to a recess until 9:30 am, to then communicate their consensus and dissent to the plenary session.
