BRATISLAVA, September 12, (WEBNOVINY) — Together 51 schools all over Slovakia announced plans to stay closed this Tuesday due to a protest of teachers’ unions in front of the Cabinet Office in Bratislava, Ministry of Education’s spokeswoman Miriam Ziakova told SITA news agency. According to her, some schools allow all their pupils to stay at home; in some cases, it will only be some classes. Both groups and individuals plan to participate in the protest. Directors of some schools informed SITA that they did not notify competent authorities on calling a director’s leave as the protesting teachers will be substitutes by their colleagues.
Some teachers who are not members of the unions plan joining the protest as well. Organizers of the petition “For Better Education” will wear a symbolic light blue ribbon, yet their opinions slightly differ from those of the unions. “We walk the same way but we’d like to go further,” the petition’s organizer, Levice teacher Ludovit Sebeledi told SITA. Teachers with blue-ribbons will join the protest claiming their petition’s demands already signed by some 35,000 teachers and members of the public: increasing the amount of funds for education available annually to 6 percent GDP, increasing salaries of teachers by 30 percent this year alone and others.
The objective of planned protest is to notify the Cabinet on the need to honor its program document in the field of education in order to increase the amount of funds available and to improve the salaries of school employees. Approximately some eight thousand teachers allegedly plan to protest in front of the Cabinet Office on Tuesday noon. Some schools will send their representatives, from some others complete staffs plan attending, informed Jozef Luzak, Deputy Chairman of the Trade Union of Workers in Education and Science in Slovakia.
Luzak also said that the teachers hope to be able to negotiate with the whole Cabinet. They meet Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca on a regular basis, yet he by himself has too little powers to provide more funds for education. The ministry informed that the development of Slovak public finance does not show that it would be possible to allocate more funds for salaries of teachers.
SITA