The school year begins in the Community of Madrid with a call to the four main unions involved (CCOO, ANPE, UGT and CSIF) by the Ministry of Education (which will take place on Thursday, September 12), but without the demands that the strikes and protests of these unions and teachers (which occurred between June and May) have been addressed, according to what they themselves stated this Monday.
CCOO denounces delays in hiring and assignments: 4,389 teachers are still missing, according to union data, as well as a third of primary school teachers and half of secondary school teachers (also adding FP and special education) as of September 4. They had not yet been informed of what their destination center was going to be, the organization assured. On the other hand, 50,000 students are starting the course affected by works in their centers, which, they say, “will generate a slowdown in the educational process and a potential risk to their safety and well-being.”
The course also begins without the reduction in teaching hours that has been insistently demanded for years: “The course begins with a continuous teaching schedule. What we have learned from the centers is that more than 40% of secondary schools have more than half of the staff working more than 20 hours (more precisely 21). This means that from tomorrow, in high school, they will do about 10,000 extra hours.” According to Isabel Galvín, Secretary General of Education of the CCOO of Madrid, this is equivalent to a “saving” of 500 teachers, which translates “into a saving of 20 million euros per year.”
In addition, Galvín denounced this afternoon, at the press conference in which the four unions met, that the ratios (maximum number of children per professional or group during the mandatory hours of a working day) have not been reduced either despite the fact that “The councilor announced last week that they were going to go down”: “According to our data, around 30% of preschool education centers are above the ratio and in secondary education, this figure rises to 40%.
Teachers feel “mistreated by the Madrid administration,” said Andrés Cebrián, president of ANPE Madrid (National Association of Teaching Professionals): “We are very poorly paid and what we are asking for is a salary equalization because Madrid is perhaps one of the autonomous communities with lower salaries and wages, and yet the cost of living is much higher. There are many mental health problems in Madrid centers and no measures are taken. It seems that there is money for everything in Madrid, which is the richest region in the country, but when it comes to education, there is never any money. Especially if it is public education.
From the UGT, they highlight the great shortage of teachers that exists in public education in general, but also in special education in particular, because increasingly, they explain, more teachers are needed to cover the needs of students who require special attention and, however, “the workforce is increasingly reduced.”
They demand “realistic” proposals
“We now want realistic solutions and for this to be the last year in which public education in Madrid is reduced in quality in favor of other systems,” said Miguel Ángel González Martínez, president of the Independent Trade Union and Civil Service Center (CSIF), after arguing that they feared that Thursday’s meeting would be about “posture“We hope that this time the councilor will make us realistic proposals, proposals that we can accept, and not limit himself to what he has done in the last meetings, that is, tell us that yes, he understands us, but that there is no money. For us, it is no longer worth it,” they say from ANPE Madrid.
For her part, Teresa Jusdado, secretary of the education sector at UGT Madrid, admits that they feel suspicious due to the travels of the advisor during the previous academic year: “After negotiating for several months on the teaching day, permits and licenses, we then left in a mess. So we hope that you have taken note of this and that on this occasion you will present a serious proposal and a negotiation schedule.”
Throughout the month, two mobilizations are planned (on the 15th and 25th) called outside the negotiating table. However, “depending on the evolution of collective bargaining, other mobilizations will be announced,” the UGT emphasizes.
