The first day of the teachers’ strike in Colombia was characterized by marches and mobilizations that caused disruption in the country’s main cities.
The strike called by Fecode as a measure of pressure against the draft statutory education law is indefinite.
Fecode has proposed activities for four days this month, June 12, 13, 14 and 17; So this Wednesday mobilizations began in the main cities of the country.
Bogotá, Cúcuta, Casanare, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Quindío, Atlántico, Bolívar, Magdalena and Caldas are some of the departments where the country’s teachers have taken to the streets against a bill that they have called “regressive” .
The president of Fecode, Domingo Ayala, pointed out that the causes of the demonstration are nested in the intention to privatize education, the elimination of three-grade preschool and the evaluation of teachers, among others.
“Let President Petro see, let the senators and the Minister of Education see, this is the uncontrollable tide that requires sinking the perverse statutory bill,” said Fecode, in his official profile on the social network X.
Fecode has expressed on different occasions the need to establish a dialogue in order to put an end to the discontent of teachers, a call that has been accepted by the Minister of Education, Aurora Vergara.
“It is a statutory law reform that does not obey the interests of the Colombian teachers,” says Victoria Avendaño, representative of Fecode teachers.
In addition, teachers assure that the bill directed by Minister Aurora Vergara was modified without conciliation or consultation from Fecode.
This strike, which will leave nearly five million public school students without classes, has had different reactions, with the government’s opposition questioning the timing chosen to carry out the strike.
One of the objectives of the aforementioned statutory law is that education, including higher education, is established as a fundamental right at all its levels. Likewise, it would be sought that vulnerable populations, such as those in prison, be covered by this law.
Although Fecode supported the initiative in its beginnings, it now assures that the changes introduced to the project could put public education at risk.
Professor Avendaño assures that Fecode is protesting because the federation is concerned that the bill will affect the financing of public education in the country.
Likewise, the teacher assures that the strike “will last until next week and until when necessary”, which is why the activities are scheduled until June 20 and even later.
Avendaño assures that this strike will also be used to complain and seek a response for the repeated difficulties and deficiencies in the implementation of the new teacher health system.
“We are currently living with a supremely critical problem that the National Government must resolve because it has to do, as has been said on previous occasions, with the lives of the more than 800,000 members of Fomag, of whom more than 300,000 have chronic and catastrophic diseases, and the National Government headed by its president, who is the head of State, must resolve it immediately,” says Avendaño.
Regarding Fecode’s concerns about the teacher evaluation method proposed in the bill in which student performance would also influence the teacher’s qualification, the Government assures that it is a concern that arises from inequalities of opportunity in which children study.
“The test results are not going to be the same as those of these children from the most impoverished areas and the children who have the privileges and conditions and guarantees that are ideal for everyone. They [Fecode] “They say that it is not fair that they measure my performance depending on other factors that are specific and that do not have directly to do with the way they learned,” said the Vice Minister of Education.
THE OBSERVATIONS
“When we began this process of statutory law we had a commitment and that was to guarantee education as a fundamental right and that is manifested in the possibility that boys, girls, young people, adults and all communities can access education in the different levels with decent conditions,” says Marta Alfonso Bernal, member of the Fecode executive committee.
However, he assures, what the reform is doing is blurring the State as the only guarantor of the fundamental right to education and proposing a mixed model where private entities can also guarantee the right, something that, from the teachers’ perspective, It is contrary to the Political Constitution.
Teachers also oppose more evaluations than those that already exist today.
“We are 210,000 teachers who joined after 2001 and who are under an evaluation system that includes admission, permanence or performance, and promotions. What’s more, today we have 50,000 teachers on probation who have gone through a selection process and who will not acquire career rights until they pass it,” he declared.
According to what was decided by Fecode, there will be four days of strike: the initial one, this Wednesday, June 12, which includes mobilizations in several capitals of the country. In Bogotá, the march will begin at 9 am at the District Administrative Center and will go to Plaza de Bolívar.
On Thursday the 13th, teachers will hold informative assemblies, on Friday the 14th there will be a day of activities and on Monday the 17th there will be what they have called the ‘Great Taking of Bogotá’.
The strike will especially affect students from official schools who, if extended, could see the end of the first semester of the year jeopardized, since, for calendar A, the start of the mid-year holidays is already close.
For the Government, seeking a quick agreement with the teachers is essential, not only because Fecode has been one of the main pillars of the movement that brought Petro to the presidency, but because education is perhaps the only social reform presented by the Government that could end the legislature that concludes this July 20, with a positive balance.
Points of discontent
Points that generated discontent in Fecode:
Creation of school vouchers: Fecode denounces that this measure allows the privatization and commercialization of education under the pretext of improving quality.
It denies the mandatory nature of early childhood education: the union reported that the transition grades, kindergarten and pre-kindergarten would not be considered mandatory by law, which is a setback for the development of the youngest children in the country, key processes for the following years of study.
Reduction of education to a public service: according to the union, this classification has the background of “breaking the back of Fecode”, singling out and stigmatizing the teaching profession and undermining the right to peaceful mobilization that is constitutionally protected.
Creation of new bureaucratic apparatuses: the proposal to establish a Superintendency of Education is seen by Fecode as unnecessary, given that the Ministry of National Education already has powers for inspection, surveillance and control.
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