Europe

Europe

Madrid teachers march against education budget cuts

22 October 2011 18:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Tens of thousands of teachers, students and parents marched through the center of Madrid Saturday to protest against cuts in education budgets.

The march started from the Plaza Neptune and ended at Plaza del Sol, the symbolic middle of Spain, after passing the Plaza Cibeles and the offices of the regional education authority.

This is the third march through the Spanish capital in protest at the authority’s cuts of education budgets and follows the sixth round of strike by secondary school teachers Thursday.

Teachers are angry at budget cuts of 80 million euros by the city’s education authority, which means their classroom contact hours will be increased by two hours a week and they have to teach subjects they are not good at.

Many schools now lack the financial resources to use their science laboratories and have to reduce extra-curriculum activities.

The cuts will limit their abilities to provide back-up classes for struggling students and integration classes for the children of immigrants, teachers said.

The government has introduced a series of tax breaks worth about 90 million euros for parents who are able to send their children to private schools, teachers said.

Cutbacks in public education are being used to fund private schools and will result in a two-tier education system, they complained.

While previous demonstrations were limited to teachers from the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Saturday’s demonstration was joined by teachers from all over the country and teachers’ unions from Britain, France, Portugal, Italy and Greece were also represented.

The President of the Community of Madrid Esperanza Aguirre has so far refused to negotiate with the teachers and insisted that the protests are politically motivated a month before the general election.