On Caracas Avenue, Fecode, the largest teachers union in the country, started its “Great Takeover of Bogotá.” He is also protesting from the National University and the Plaza de Bolívar, downtown. According to the Mayor’s Office, there are nearly 10 thousand people who are mobilized at eight points monitored by the Unified Command Post.
The teachers are mobilizing against the education reform and that has Fecode on a national strike that has been going on for a little over a week.
On June 12, the Federation had mobilized at the national level in different cities such as Cali, Medellín, Pasto and Bucaramanga. Although today the union delegations at the regional level arrived in Bogotá, there are also protests in other parts such as Guainía and Vaupés.
The plan for today’s mobilization. There are eight concentration points, but four were the main departure points: the Manuela Beltrán School in the north, the National University in the west, the Enrique Olaya Herrera school in the east, and the Sena in the south.
Fecode announced that it will mobilize until the Senate Plenary concludes the debate on the educational reform, but today it is not scheduled on the agenda, even though it has time on its hands. Thus, at 6 in the afternoon, the union will meet in a national meeting at the Hotel Tequendama in Bogotá, to take stock of the day.
Why are teachers protesting? Fecode is against the text approved in the First Commission of the Senate on June 5, because it changed parts of the initial spirit of the project presented by the government. According to the teachers, the text promotes the privatization of education with “overtly neoliberal and regressive” points.
Due to pressure from Fecode, finally the opposition and government benches did not reach a consensus on the final text. For this reason, opposition senators filed an alternative presentation. The teachers claim that their suggestions had not been heard or included and, therefore, they demand that the project be sunk in Congress.
In this detector we tell that several points that Fecode demands to protest and go on strike are not stipulated in the education reform.
