March 12th State school strike and national demostration in Rome
Teachers, school workers, students and parents against the distruction of
State school
On March 12th , on the day of general strike and national demonstration in Rome called by
COBAS, the “people of State school” will be back in the streets again, for a big national
event in defence of State school.
The Governament is imposing a distructive High school reform not based upon a didactic
project, but only upon budget cuts. The same project, brutal and suicide for education and
for cultural and economic development of our society , started with the “maestra unica”only one teacher per class- and with the “weakening” of full time classes in Primary
schools .
The state coffers have been looted by bankers, financier and industrialists on the effort to
save triky or “dead” companies and in the meanwhile a chain of scandals are showing
huge amounts stolen from the common goods by powerful criminal organizations, by
nepotism and groups well introduced in the state body.
At the same time, the governament claims to save money with the closure of State
schools, cutting teaching hours and important study subjects, cutting an average of 4
hours a week of fundamental teaching subjects, cutting laboratories and practical training
and therefore not hiring tens of thousand casual teachers and school workers .All this is
hitting a sector, public education, already impoverished by all the goverments of the last
twenty years ; the ongoing school budget reduction is dramatically weakening the school
organization and, to face the lack of many fundamental didactic tools, families are
frequently asked for growing contributions. This is becoming a real – and illegal- school
fee. Moreover ,casual teachers are no more hired , students are gathered all toghether in
small classes and private courses are spreading.
Protests and mobilizations against this progressive dismantling of public education are
growing and will culminate on March 12th in a general strike of education called by COBAS
and in a big national demonstration in Rome for the withdrawal of the High school “reform”,
against the cut of thousands work places , against cuts of schools and school subjects,
against the Brunetta and Aprea bills, against hierarchization of labor, against the
lowering to 15 of leaving age in compulsory education , for the employment of casual
school workers, for capital expenditures in school, for union democracy in the education
sector and for the restitution of assembly rights. At the head of the demo casual school
workers, after months of struggle for the defence of public education, for the quality of
teaching and for their own work : together with teachers, parents, students and other
school workers they will permanently besiege the Education Ministry.
Piero Bernocchi
National spokesman of COBAS