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REPORTS: LATIN AMERICA |
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EDUCATION:
Teachers
on Strike, in Struggle to Survive
Darío
Montero*
MONTEVIDEO, (IPS) - Teachers have been
going on strike in many countries of
Latin America -- a symptom of one of the
worst crises facing the educational
systems of a region where teachers earn
salaries on which they can barely
survive.
Teachers in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa
Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru have been
holding walkouts and even hunger strikes
demanding salary hikes and the payment
of back wages.
With few exceptions, teachers in Latin
America earned between 100 and 300
dollars a month in the 1990s, when
economic growth held steady at between
three and seven percent a year in many
countries, and in the wake of the
economic crises that have shaken the
region since 1998.
Teachers today earn monthly salaries of
120 dollars on average in Argentina and
Brazil, 170 dollars in Bolivia, 200
dollars in Peru and Uruguay, 250 dollars
in Ecuador, and 300 dollars in Colombia,
Mexico and Venezuela.
Educators in Costa Rica and Chile are
relatively better-off, earning 500 and
650 dollars a month, respectively.
The widespread discontent among teachers
is a result of inadequate spending on
education, ''precarious working and
hiring conditions,'' and the lack of
''stable careers,'' Brazilian
parliamentary Deputy Carlos Abicalil,
with the education office of the
governing Workers' Party, told IPS.
He blamed the situation on ''poor
administration, and corruption, a common
problem in Latin America that reduces
the efficiency of resources and should
be attacked'' by increasing public
investment in education and paying
decent salaries.
Most Latin American countries spend the
equivalent of 2.5 to four percent of
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on
education, although Mexico spends 6.6
percent, close to the minimum
recommended by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO).
UNESCO's recommendation to earmark the
equivalent of at least seven percent of
GDP for education is only exceeded in
the region by Cuba, which assigned 8.1
percent of GDP to the budget for
education in 2001.
Although the proportion of GDP spent on
education in Mexico is among the highest
in Latin America, calls for a higher
level of spending and a wage raise are
among the central demands put forth by
the National Coordinator of Education
Workers (CNTE), which wants investment
in the sector to be increased to 12
percent of GDP in order to overcome
years of under-spending.
Around 5,000 public school teachers from
Mexico's provinces, members of the CNTE
-- which says it represents around
300,000 of the country's 1.5 million
teachers -- converged on the capital
nearly two months ago to hold a protest
demanding a 100 percent increase in
wages.
The CNTE refused a nearly eight percent
wage hike agreed in early May by the
government and the main teachers' union,
the National Union of Education Workers
(SNTE).
Although the protest continues, the
number of teachers camped out in the
capital has dwindled to 500. The rest
have returned to their provinces, and to
their classrooms.
But the most visible recent teachers'
strike in Latin America took place in
Peru, where the government declared a
state of emergency after a month-long
walkout by educators demanding that
their monthly salaries of 200 dollars be
raised by nearly 60 dollars. The strike
triggered protests and demonstrations of
solidarity around the country, which
were cracked down on by the armed
forces.
Peru's Economy Minister Javier Silva
responded that a wage hike of more than
28 dollars was impossible, because it
would compromise the government's
ability to meet the targets agreed with
the International Monetary Fund.
Peru allocates three percent of GDP --
similar to the proportion that goes to
servicing the country's foreign debt --
to an education system that serves
nearly eight million students. The
salaries of Peru's 280,000 teachers are
among the lowest earned by any of the
country's public employees.
The teachers, who reached an agreement
with authorities on Jun. 11 that put an
end to the strike, want the education
budget to be doubled ''to at least six
percent of GDP, which is still less than
the minimum recommended by UNESCO,''
trade unionist Olmedo Auris told IPS.
Some 200 teachers in Ecuador, meanwhile,
declared a hunger strike on Jun. 9,
after nearly a month during which the
schools were closed by a stoppage,
because teachers were demanding a wage
hike of 20 dollars a month, compared to
the 10 dollars offered by the
government.
In Costa Rica, which abolished its army
in 1949 to reallocate defence spending
to education, teachers remain on strike,
after walking off the job on Jun. 2 to
demand the payment of back wages.
Paychecks had fallen behind due to
changes in the computer system.
The teachers held a march in San Jose on
Tuesday.
The conflict, which includes demands for
changes in the pensions system and
improved labour conditions, triggered
the resignation of Education Minister
Astrid Fischel.
''The education system has been in
decline for 20 years, and especially
under the last two governments,'' said
teachers' union spokeswoman Gilda González.
Nevertheless, Costa Rica continues to
stand out in Central America. In the
late 1990s, Costa Rica dedicated the
equivalent of 5.4 percent of GDP to
education, compared to just 1.6 percent
of GDP in El Salvador and Guatemala, 4.1
percent in Honduras, 4.5 percent in
Nicaragua, and 4.9 percent in Panama.
The teachers with the most optimistic
outlook for the future are those of
Argentina and Brazil, because the new
governments in the two South American
nations have indicated a willingness to
address educators' demands.
Just a few days after taking office on
May 25, Argentina's centre-left
President Néstor Kirchner took
immediate steps to overcome a teachers'
strike that was keeping thousands of
students in the western province of San
Juan and the eastern province of Entre Ríos
out of school.
Through a World Bank loan that had been
on hold for a year, the back wages
demanded by the teachers were paid, and
the work stoppage was called off.
Teachers' salaries in Argentina have
plunged 42 percent over the past year,
and spending on education has shrunk by
a similar amount. Since the late 2001
political and economic meltdown, nearly
70 percent of the country's minors have
fallen into poverty, and 33 percent into
extreme poverty.
Gustavo Frutto, secretary of the Union
of Argentine Educators, told IPS that
teachers are calling for ''a basic
unified salary for the country's 24
districts.''
Frutto also complained about the poor
conditions of schools and other
infrastructure, and the dismal labour
conditions of administrative and other
non-teaching personnel in the country's
educational institutions, many of whom
have been earning 50 dollars a month for
the past 10 years.
In Brazil, teachers hope that tax
reforms set to be approved by Congress
will include an expansion of the
education budget.
The leftist government of Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva now has the chance to
overturn the previous administration's
veto of a law that stipulated that
education spending must be equivalent to
at least seven percent of GDP.
''We hope President Lula will set a
minimum wage for the sector,'' which
should be around 1,300 reais (440
dollars) a month, the secretary of the
National Confederation of Education
Workers, Eduardo Ferreira, pointed out
to IPS, referring to the income
necessary for a typical family to meet
their minimum needs.
The low incomes earned by teachers
partly explain why Brazil has 254,000
less fifth to eighth-grade teachers than
the necessary 711,000.
In Venezuela, meanwhile, primary school
teachers earn a maximum of 250 dollars a
month, while secondary school teachers
can earn up to 400 dollars a month if
they teach math for 36 hours a week,
high school teacher Lucila Romero
explained to IPS.
''Teachers' strikes in Venezuela have
almost always been held to demand the
payment of back wages,'' she pointed
out. Although the government of populist
President Hugo Chávez has brought
payments nearly up to date, and has
increased education spending to the
equivalent of five percent of GDP,
''payments of several benefits are still
behind,'' Romero added.
Chile is an exception in the overall
regional panorama, even though it has
not returned to the quality of education
seen between 1960 and the start of a
17-year dictatorship in 1973.
The education system suffered ''an
unprecedented'' decline under the de
facto regime that remained in power
until 1990, according to the high school
teachers' association.
In 2001, spending on education amounted
to 4.2 percent of GDP, around half of
the proportion dedicated to the sector
in 1972.
Due to reforms of Chile's educational
system in the 1980s, many more students
now attend private schools.
Today, 53 percent of students are in
schools run by municipal governments, 36
percent attend private schools that
receive state subsidies, and nine
percent are enrolled in private
institutions.
* Abraham Lama in Peru, Diego Cevallos
in Mexico, Mario Osava in Brazil,
Viviana Alonso in Argentina, Néfer Muñoz
in Costa Rica, Humberto Márquez in
Venezuela and Gustavo González in Chile
contributed to this report.
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