Cuts, protests and actions in the centers: first day of mobilizations in public education

BarcelonaThe education sector launches a new cycle of mobilizations in defense of public education. On the eve of Thursday's strike day in early childhood education (0-3) –the first of seventeen called for next month across all educational stages–, teachers have staged various traffic disruptions, protests, and actions in schools since early this morning.

In L'Hospitalet, for example, about thirty professionals blocked traffic at the access to Sant Rafael street, at the intersection with Isabel la Católica avenue, shouting "Public and quality education", "More resources and fewer speeches", and "Educational strike". In statements to the ACN, Maria Samper, a teacher at a high school in the city, emphasized that the day is intended to inform the public and students about the start of a new schedule of strikes and to explain the reasons. "If the Government decides to negotiate, we will change and the school year will end normally. And it will not be so if the department remains unyielding", she concluded.

Protests with this message will be repeated throughout the day across the territory. In schools such as CEIP Cavall Bernat in Barcelona, Escola Montserrat Solà in Mataró, and Institut Escola La Pallaresa in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a manifesto was read just before the start of classes. In some schools, however, actions will take place during break time, and others plan to protest at midday by taking tables and chairs into the street or forming human chains. And in Igualada, for example, a packed lunch gathering has been called in the Town Hall square.

To the struggle of the educational community to improve working conditions and resources in schools has been added in recent days the majority opposition of the sector to the deployment of Mossos in schools and institutes to "guarantee school coexistence", as announced by the Government. In this regard, about fifty people have gathered this morning in front of the Institut Escola Joan Sallarès i Pla de Sabadell, one of the first 14 centers that will host plainclothes police officers within the framework of the Generalitat's pilot plan.

The protest calendar, called by the majority union USTEC, Secondary School Teachers, the CGT, and Intersindical, includes three system-wide strikes on May 12, May 27, and June 5, as well as a series of mobilizations extended throughout the territory and called according to the educational stage. In total, each educational center will be affected by five strikes in the coming month.