A brief review of teacher salaries in some Argentine provinces (of those that publish their salaries), shows us that this is the norm, and not the exception; what teacher salary is below inflation in several territories. Given this reality, it is unthinkable to speak of educational quality: If we want to improve the education that our children receive, we cannot have poor teachers. Because while we celebrate the start of work on having more class hours, teachers reinvent the few free hours they have to get another source of income, because money is not enough.
The teaching profession, so reviled over the years in the eyes of society, still requires an enormous vocation and love, every day. But today, unfortunately, nobody thinks about teachers, and about the effort that the task of educating entails every day, of being present in the classrooms. I know the enormous dedication and will that the teaching community puts in on a daily basis. During 2020 we were the only teachers’ union that worked tirelessly to resume face-to-face classes, even when all the other unions were opposed. And what is the recognition of the teachers who continue to lead the classrooms without ceasing? The back of part of the political class.
For this reason, we have been insisting on the urgent need to reopen the national educational parity. It is unheard of and inhumane that the National Government, in this inflationary context where the word adverse already sounds like little, is granting “emergency” bonuses to various sectors when teachers, a key part of our society, receive absolutely nothing.
While the teachers’ unions that sit at the national table to discuss parity call for complicit silence, without discussing these things, devising dissuasive maneuvers such as the famous teachers’ strikes, from SEducA we choose to show our faces. This means being in the classroom as we have always done, guaranteeing the right to education because it is the most fundamental right we have, and we must take care of it. In this sense, we propose a Educational-Economic Contingency Protocol because otherwise the situation will become irreversible.
There are many years where the formula is repeated: national parity in February, teacher unemployment until March, and teachers below the inflation line in April. And this is the product of sitting the same as always at the table. With different methods we are clear about our objectives: to revalue the teaching role, accompany it from the working conditions and promote it from the coverage of economic needs, because from now on we have to be aware of one thing: if we want more and better education we have to start because teachers get out of the situation of poverty. And this must be done urgently.
The author is a member of the Teachers Union of Argentina (SEDUCA)
Source: Ambito
