STRIKE ACTION: Why Are Colombian Teachers Protesting the Government?
STRIKE ACTION: Why Are Colombian Teachers Protesting the Government?
April 28, 2015
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Dozens of Colombian teachers take part in a protest claiming for better working conditions, during the 50th anniversary of the Colombian Federation of Educators (FECODE) on March 24, 2009, in Bogota. AFP PHOTO/Mauricio Duenas
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Last year, still riding the hype of his reelection, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos stated as a national goal that Colombia would be Latin America’s ‘Most educated country’ by 2025. Around six months later, in April 27th, 2015, the streets in Colombia’s main cities were flooded by thousands of public school teachers, in their fifth day of national, indefinite strike. What has brought about this strike? What are its main implications?
Traditionally, schoolteachers have been significant political actors in the Colombian context. Their closeness to communities turns them into attractive targets for political actors in order to spread agendas and collect voters’ support. However, this has also endangered teachers, as they become targets of armed groups through threats, intimidation and murder. And this, of course, is a bigger problem in regions particularly hit by conflict, as was the case with Antioquia and Cesar throughout the 90s.
These two regions, turned into laboratories for the paramilitary project, saw the figures of murders and threats to teachers skyrocket to an alarming total of 737 combined incidents in Antioquia and 522 in Cesar between the years of 1997 to 2002, according to a report released by Mario Novelli and Education International in 2009. As a result, relations between FECODE, the country’s teachers union, and the government have been traditionally conflictive.
In the current strike, heralded by FECODE and the regional teachers’ unions, their demands are centered around three points: improvements to their healthcare provider, salary raises and a revamp of teacher evaluation schemes. The historically low wages teachers collect in the country, and their heavy workloads have led to a somewhat poor representation of the profession in society, going so far as to creating the term ‘pobresor,’ a portmanteau of the words ‘pobre’ (poor) and ‘profesor’.
More:
http://africasacountry.com/strike-action-why-are-colombian-teachers-protesting-the-government/