BRASIL
Los docentes brasileños ya están hartos porque ven con incertidumbre su futuro laboral. Llevan 46 días de protesta, muchos acampados fuera del ayuntamiento. Rechazan un aumento salarial propuesto por el Gobierno de Dilma Rousseff, muy por debajo de lo que ellos demandan y otra de las resoluciones es limitar el sueldo de aquellos que trabajen menos de 40 horas semanales. Llevan semanas protestando y no se sienten escuchados. Los manifestantes comienzan a lanzar piedras contra la policía, contra el consistorio y el moviliario urbano acaba destrozado. Los antidisturbios dispersan a la multitud ...
COLOMBIA
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Los 324.000 profesores de las escuelas y colegios públicos de Colombia iniciaron el martes una huelga indefinida para exigir mejoras en salud y el pago de deudas salariales y pensiones atrasadas, en el más reciente movimiento de presión social contra el presidente Juan Manuel Santos.
La protesta dejó sin clases a más 8 millones de estudiantes, dijo Luis Alberto Gruber, presidente de la Federación Nacional de Educadores (Fecode), el sindicato de los educadores al servicio del Estado.
"El paro va hasta cuando el Gobierno nos dé solución a los problemas planteados", dijo Gruber a Reuters.
Unos 500 profesores de colegios públicos de Cali suspendieron labores este martes en una masiva protesta por tiempo indefinido, encabezada por la Federación Colombiana de Trabajadores de la Educación (Fecode), en rechazo por los incumplimientos reiterados del Gobierno.
En Cali, la jornada de protesta inició con una concentración en la institución educativa Antonio José Camacho, que llegó al CAM pasado el mediodía.
Los educadores afirman que mantendrán el cese de actividades hasta que el Estado cumpla con los pagos atrasados desde 2002 y abogan por un decreto que reglamente el régimen de salud del magisterio para que exista un marco jurídico, porque, dicen, hasta ahora solo está soportado por los contratos de salud.
Según un miembro de Fecode, en este acuerdo se estableció que se expediría un decreto para el pago de una prima de servicios.
In Colombia after 21 days of a nationwide strike by thousands of farmers, blocking more than 40 roads nationwide, protesting farmers forced the Colombian government to negotiate the rejection of a farm bill and the release of detained protesters.
CHILE
a lucha por una educación pública y gratuita ha movilizado por más de tres años no sólo a los estudiantes y la juventud; ha motivado la toma de liceos y universidades, y logrado que sus organizaciones se multipliquen, muchas en alianza con trabajadores. Las políticas privatizadoras instauradas a sangre y fuego bajo la dictadura militar, han logrado destruir por completo la educación pública del país y un incremento voraz de las instituciones educacionales privadas, fenómeno sin parangón en el continente.
¡Ni Alianza ni Nueva Mayoría!
Los últimos cinco gobiernos, tanto derechistas como concertacionistas, han desarrollado y defendido estas políticas privatizadoras y desplegado un millonario vaciamiento de dinero público, el cual ha terminado directamente en los bolsillos de los dueños de liceos y universidades privadas.
CUBA
Esta semana más de dos millones de cubanos acudieron a las aulas para iniciar o continuar sus estudios. Se trata de la sexta parte de la población de la isla y está compuesta por niños, jóvenes y hasta abuelos. Cuba es el único país de América Latina en el que todos los chicos en edad escolar, sin excepción, van a la escuela, donde toda la enseñanza es gratuita, incluyendo la universitaria, la artística y también la especial, para aquellos niños que sufren minusvalías.
Estudiar en Cuba es bastante fácil, no se paga matricula ni siquiera en la universidad y los libros son entregados gratuitamente por cada escuela, secundaria, preuniversitario o facultad, con el único compromiso de devolverlo en buen estado al finalizar el curso escolar. Hay universidades en todas las capitales provinciales y estas cuentan con residencias gratuitas para albergar a los estudiantes que viven en el campo. Semejantes facilidades masificaron la enseñanza y transformaron la economía nacional.
ECUADOR
El presidente Rafael Correa, durante su enlace sabatino, señaló que los recursos petroleros que el Gobierno se propone extraer del Yasuní ITT servirán para llevar educación de calidad a las comunidades más pobres de la Amazonía, a través de la construcción de unidades educativas del milenio, como la actualmente inaugurada unidad Bosco Wisuma, con la cual se brinda a los niños y jóvenes de la zona un futuro que, según Correa, quienes se oponen a la explotación del parque nacional se los quieren arrebatar supuestamente con un falso discurso ecologista.
PARAGUAY
Las nuevas protestan se producen después de que el Ministerio de Educación, amparándose en el artículo 373 del Código del Trabajo, comunicara a principios de esta semana que los profesores que se unieron a aquellas jornadas de huelga dejarán de percibir este mes el salario correspondiente a los días faltados al trabajo.
Durante el pasado mes de julio, la Federación de Educadores del Paraguay (FEP) y la OTEP llamaron a la huelga al sector docente de todo el país para protestar contra la Ley de Jubilaciones, la cual, según fuentes sindicales, recoge bajadas del 70 por ciento en algunos casos, lo que supone "dejar a los docentes sin el pan de cada día".
FRANCIA
Las escuelas públicas francesas mostrarán a partir de mañana en un lugar visible, junto al lema de la República -"Libertad, igualdad, fraternidad"- y a la Declaración de Derechos Humanos y del ciudadano,una Carta del Laicismo que se enseñará a los alumnos como la base de los valores del país. "Demasiada gente tiene ahora una representación errónea del laicismo", señaló en una entrevista publicada hoy por
Le Journal du Dimanche el ministro de Educación, Vincent Peillon, que justificó la enseñanza de esta síntesis en 15 puntos de sus grandes principios.
Peillon recordó que la Constitución en su artículo primero establece que Francia es una república"indivisible, democrática, social y laica", unos valores para los que hay que explicar su significado. Señaló que el laicismo es "una exigencia de razón, de justicia y de paz" que fija "un cierto número de obligaciones, de límites y de reglas: el respeto de los demás, la neutralidad del Estado, de los espacios en los que no se hace proselitismo, la distinción del saber y de la fe".
PORTUGAL
No dia em que começa o ano lectivo há muitas escolas que ainda estão à espera da colocação de professores e de pessoal auxiliar. É o caso do agrupamento de escolas de Benfica, em Lisboa, que tem perto de três mil alunos e onde faltam 50 professores.
"Eu tinha esperança que as colocações tivessem sido feitas ontem", revela à Renascença o director de agrupamento.
"Vamos a ver se são hoje. Eu espero bem que sim, pois ainda me faltam alguns, cerca de 50 horas", acrescenta Manuel Esperança.
O director mostra-se também preocupado com a eventual falta de pessoas não docente.
Mais de 30 mil professores ficaram sem colocação, depois de concluído o concurso para contratação de docentes. As listas foram divulgadas hoje pelo Ministério da Educação na página da Direcção Geral da Administração Escolar.
Dos 43 mil professores que ainda estavam sem colocação nas escolas portuguesas, apenas 6593 foram chamados na Contratação Inicial de Professores. De acordo com a nota de imprensa do Ministério da Educação e da Ciência, foram colocados 5454 professores contratados, aos quais se juntam 793 através do recurso a professores de carreira que estavam sem componente letiva (DACL).
Lisboa, 15 set (Lusa) -- Lúcia vai fazer 260 quilómetros diariamente para dar aulas e gastar mais de metade do ordenado em viagens, mas há quem opte por mudar de casa e "levar a família às costas", como uma professora primária colocada em Lisboa.
Lúcia Lopes, de 35 anos, e Mafalda Beltrão, de 38, são dois exemplos do que acontece a milhares de professores. No final de agosto ficaram a saber onde tinham sido colocadas e, em poucos dias, tiveram de se apresentar na escola nova, a centenas de quilómetros de casa. Professoras há mais de uma década, são "nómadas do sistema".
CHINA
A recent debt collection warning notice issued to 28 college graduates to pay back their students loans from more than a decade ago has circulated through the media in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, a situation that has irritated banks and left some students stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The notice was issued by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to graduates who had student loans ranging from 1,000 yuan ($163) to 5,000 yuan. One graduate owes 4,500 yuan in student loans and 3,600 yuan in interest.
"The loans were granted 12 or 13 years ago; many debtors have changed their numbers and moved to other cities after graduation, so the bank has no choice but to contact them through the media, " Wang Bing, deputy director of the credit office at ICBC's Zhengzhou branch, told the Global Times.
College students are permitted to apply for school loans of up to 6,000 yuan per year, which they can either pay back before graduation or within five years of graduation. The arrangement can be negotiated with the bank.
But banks are finding it hard to collect on the student loans owed to them while the default rate on student loans rests at nearly 30 percent, or 28.4 percent, according to People's Bank of China.
It is a situation that leaves banks no longer wanting to grant student loans as the lending institutions grow increasingly disgruntled over time-consuming debt collections, said Wang.
The problem also exists in other countries, with the biggest US commerical bank, JPMorgan, announcing Thursday that it will stop offering student loans from October due to the billions of dollars lost to student loan defaults, the Wall Street Journal reported.
INDIA
Teachers in Chanidgarh, India are blocking the main NH21 Highway to demand that they be given permanent contracts. They started blocking the road on Saturday afternoon and continued for 22 hours, even though the authorities threatened police action if they do not move. As a result of the teachers' action, which was under the banner of the Education Providers Union Punjab, the state authorities have agreed to a meeting with the teachers to discuss their grievances.
7000 teachers across the Punjab area are on temporary contracts. Only
last May, teachers in the same area were arrested, when they tried to protest against their contracts and, in their case, that they had not been paid for 13 months.
UGANDA
Los profesores de colegio ugandeses han iniciado este lunes una huelga indefinida tras no obtener un aumento de su sueldo del 20 por ciento, subrayando así las dificultades a las que se enfrenta el Gobierno después de que los donantes occidentales interrumpieran el año pasado sus ayudas al país.
El Gobierno ha prometido aumentar el salario de los profesores, entre los más bajos del país, pero al mismo tiempo debe hacer frente a una serie de compromisos presupuestarios tras la interrupción de las ayudas por acusaciones de corrupción.
El secretario general del Sindicato Nacional de Profesores de Uganda (UNATU), James Tweheyo, ha señalado que los 159.000 miembros del sindicato no darán clases desde este lunes hasta que sus peticiones sean atendidas.
REINO UNIDO
Huelgas en Irlanda e Inglaterra...
Secondary teachers attached to the ASTI may refuse to work additional hours set out under the Croke Park Agreement as part of a campaign of industrial action.
The standing committee of the teachers union, the ASTI, will meet today to consider its next move after its members rejected the Haddington Road agreement.
Secondary school teachers voted against the deal last week.
General Secretary of the ASTI Pat King said additional working hours, set out under the Croke Park agreement, will be targeted as part of any industrial action.
"They are certainly a target of the government - and they have cut teacher's pay and broken the agreement - it's logical that we would withdraw from the aspects of the agreement that we've committed to."
He said that time includes after-hours meetings and planning sessions.
"We went into that loyally and willingly - and the government changed it - they moved the goalposts," he said.
"Well, we have to respond."
Classroom chaos looms in 475 secondary schools around the country as industrial action begins this week.
The move by the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) means an uncertain start to the school year for thousands of pupils.
And it marks a particularly worrying time for exam students, who now face missing out on vital teaching time, and their parents.
Threats by the Education Minister Ruairi Quinn of redundancies in the immediate wake of ASTI's rejection of the Haddington Road Agreement has done little to ease tensions.
The union's stance has invariably ignited the usual accusations against teachers of not appreciating their well-paid safe jobs in the current economic climate.
Austerity kids: young people in Ireland are demonstrating against education cuts and rising student fees. One student on the march tells Channel 4 News about the "mental strain" of having no money.
Thousands of students across Ireland are taking a break from freshers' week festivities and travelling to Dublin, Sligo and Cork for demonstrations against further cuts to education.
Schools throughout the Midlands, Yorkshire and east of England have been forced to shut after members of Britain's two largest teachers' unions took industrial action as part of a series of regional protests against government plans to change teachers' pay and working conditions.
The joint action by members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the NASUWT affected tens of thousands of pupils across 49 local authorities, with many schools closed for the day and others reducing their hours or cutting classes.
In Leeds, 111 schools were closed and 91 others had limited
teaching or had to turn away some year groups.
La marcha, que se inició en la calle Liverpool a las 12:15, pasó por el centro de la ciudad y concluyó con discursos en Whitworth Park.
La manifestación intentó evidenciar las drásticas consecuencias que tienen las políticas capitalistas del Gobierno sobre las condiciones de vida de la clase trabajadora.
La policía de Manchester describió la protesta como una de las más grandes que jamás había vigilado.
"Las políticas neoliberales están teniendo un efecto devastador en nuestras comunidades y los servicios, con 21.000 puestos de trabajo perdidos del NHS en los últimos tres meses", declaró Frances O'Grady, secretario general la Federación de Sindicatos británica (Trades Union Congress, TUC), que agrupa a 58 asociaciones de trabajadores.
"El NHS es uno de los mejores logros del Reino Unido y no vamos a permitir que los ministros lo destruyan a través de los recortes y la privatización", expresó.
UK teacher Rob Price explains in this FB post why we should care about and support the upcoming joint strikes of the country's two biggest teachers unions. (My post tomorrow will discuss why this is a strike over much more than pay and pensions.) You can tweet messages of support to @nutonline with the hashtag #teacherroar.
The lessons on atheism, agnosticism and humanism for thousands of primary-school pupils in Ireland will be drawn up by Atheist Ireland and multi-denominational school provider Educate Together, in an education system that the Catholic church hierarchy has traditionally dominated.
Up to 16,000 primary schoolchildren who attend the fast-growing multi-denominational Irish school sector will receive tuition about atheism as part of their basic introduction course to ethics and belief systems, including other religions.
From September 2014 children could be reading texts such as Dawkins' The Magic of Reality, his book aimed at children, according to Atheist Ireland.
Once coffee was a black and white issue, but nowadays we feel ashamed if we cannot identify a skinny-soy macchiato. So highly valued is coffee that the very thought of it has dragged
students at one university into a heated political debate – in the middle of summer.
USA
En Estados Unidos hay actualmente 37 millones de estudiantes que están endeudados por motivos académicos. A falta de un adecuado sistema educativo público, y con una notable incapacidad financiera para hacer frente al pago de las matrículas, los jóvenes estudiantes estadounidenses se ven forzados a endeudarse para poder acceder a los estudios. La cantidad total de préstamos pendientes de pago es de
870.000 millones de dólares, con una media de 23.000 dólares por estudiante. Para hacerse una idea global de la magnitud, basta saber que la cantidad de préstamos educativos pendientes es superior a la de las tarjetas de crédito (693.000 millones) o la de compra de automóviles (730.000 millones).
Este panorama es propio de una sociedad que concibe a la educación como una mercancía y no como un derecho, y está especialmente inserto en la genética de las sociedades anglosajonas, de clara cultura liberal. Cuando no es el Estado el que financia la educación, a través de los mecanismos de redistribución propios del llamado "Estado del Bienestar", entonces el acceso a la misma queda dependiente de las oportunidades privadas de cada estudiante. Es decir, de su capacidad financiera. Y aquí es donde las entidades financieras ven un claro negocio.
Philadelphia - The School District of Philadelphia, the eighth largest school district in the United States, nestled in the country's fifth largest city, will make history when it permanently closes it doors within the next two years.
While Philadelphia is one of the largest school districts in the country, it is also one of the most bankrupt. The
district will start the 2013-2014 school on September 9 but stares at a $304 million deficit. If it weren't for the city borrowing $50 million on behalf of the school district, none of the 218 public schools would be opening next week. The slight infusion of money allows Superintendent William Hite to open schools on time but it's far from meeting the needs of the district that had to lay off 20 percent of its total staff over the summer. It was the second consecutive year of thinning out staff that saw 3,800 teacher and staff positions eliminated, 100 school nurses, 90 school resource officers, and 43 bilingual counselors.
Although the school district continues to have financial and academic trouble year after year, the finger pointing halts at the State of Pennsylvania. After taking control of the district in 2001, the state has not fixed any of the problems in Philadelphia; allowing the current situation to spread like a virus.
Jerusah O. Conner is an education professor at Villanova University and is an expert on the Philadelphia school district. In a recent interview, the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools said that the state shoulders much of the blame for the district's problems. "Pennsylvania ranks 8th lowest in the country, spending only 35.8 percent on education. Were it not for the deliberate underinvestment and disinvestment in Philadelphia schools by the state, the district could easily be enjoying a multibillion dollar surplus instead of a deficit."
The document displayed on her website shows plans for 52 new privately-managed charters that will open over the next five years.
These charters will be staffed largely by TFA's young recruits, with five weeks of training.
Just weeks ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 public schools, claiming they were "underutilized." But the school closures presented an opportunity to expand the charter sector.
The CTU plans to change the political landscape in Chicago.
Politics in Chicago is about to get exciting. Not since 1983, when a coalition of Lakefront liberals, Latinos, Blacks and progressive union activists elected Harold Washington mayor, have the prospects for progressive change looked better.
A year ago, the radically democratic Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) made history. With its members galvanized and the community behind them,
the union went on strike and forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked school board to back down.
The CTU has now upped the ante. In April, as the union waged an unsuccessful fight against school closures, CTU President Karen Lewis declared: "If the mayor and his hand-picked corporate school board will not listen to us, we must find those who will."
More than once during the 30 years I taught English and journalism to high school students in Paterson, I imagined that creating my own school would open the door to everything I wanted as a teacher
But reality can be hard on daydreams, and I got a glimpse of how complicated these issues are when my large comprehensive high school embraced the reform-trend-of-the-day and moved to create small theme academies inside the larger school. As the lead teacher of a new Communications Academy, I soon faced a host of thorny questions: Who would our new academy serve? What would the selection process be? How would the academy share space and resources with the rest of the school? How would our academy team be formed, and what impact would overlapping circles of authority have on teachers' contractual and evaluation processes? What would be the effect of the new academies on the larger school around us, which still opened its doors to everyone?
Charter schools have an interesting history with origins that are often overlooked. The concept of charter schools was promoted by Albert Shanker and the American Federation of Teachers in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They were originally conceived as teacher-run schools that would serve students struggling inside the traditional system and would operate outside the reach of the administrative bureaucracy and the highly politicized big city school board. Charters also drew on early rounds of small school experiments initiated by teachers or community activists, often as alternatives to the city's large comprehensive high schools
The U.S. News rankings are run by Robert Morse, whose six-person team operates out of a small red brick office building in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Morse is a middle-aged man with gray hair who looks like the prototypical Beltway wonk: rumpled, self-effacing, mildly preppy and sensibly shoed. His office is piled high with the statistical detritus of more than two decades of data collection. When he took on his current job, in the mid-nineteen-eighties, the college guide was little more than an item of service journalism tucked away inside U.S. News magazine. Now the weekly print magazine is defunct, but the rankings have taken on a life of their own. In the month that the 2011 rankings came out, the U.S. News Web site recorded more than ten million visitors. U.S. News has added rankings of graduate programs, law schools, business schools, medical schools, and hospitals—and Morse has become the dean of a burgeoning international rankings industry.
"Reclaim the Promise" of Public Education
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