The Colombian Federation of Education Workers (Fecode) announced last Friday, June 7, that they were going on a permanent national strike, which continues this Thursday, June 13.
According to this union, the national strike continues today, Thursday with permanent assemblies, which is why they invited the parents of the students.
In an image that accompanied the message mentioned above, Fecode also warned that “Public education is at risk. We call for great unity from all sectors.”
💪🏾Today the Permanent National Strike continues
🔊With informative assemblies
📢We invite fathers, mothers, families and educational communities to socialization and dialogue about the reasons for the risk to the right to education that the statutory bill represents. pic.twitter.com/nfAqiIlGDv— fecode (@fecode) June 13, 2024
From the beginning, Fecode has indicated that the strike is being brought forward in rejection of the draft statutory education law that is about to be approved in the Congress of the Republic.
In a statement issued last week, they highlighted that the project reconciled by the different groups in the First Permanent Constitutional Commission of the Senate of the Republic, on June 5, “It does not correspond to the agreements signed between the national government and Fecode.
In V, the senator of the Democratic Center, Paloma Valencia, referred last Tuesday to Fecode's decision, one of the largest unions in the country.
Congresswoman Valencia was emphatic in saying that, personally, she believed that the real reason for the Fecode strike It is related to the dissatisfaction of teachers with the current health system.
“I believe that the main reason for the unemployment is the terrible health system that the Government created for them.. Fecode was convinced that with this Government they were going to put an end to what existed and that they were going to have a luxury health system; They are spending a lot more money and have a terrible health system. But, of course, the showcase topic that they are going to name is the statutory law, which has some aspects that, of course, Fecode does not like,” indicated Valencia.
Regarding the issue that Valencia mentions, which teachers do not like, it is teacher evaluation. In this sense, the senator stated that You cannot talk about education without the possibility of evaluating teachers.
“It was no longer necessary that children in the public sector are going to be condemned to having bad teachers because there is no opportunity to evaluate them. Here you have to have good teachers and certainty that the teachers are teaching young people appropriately,” Valencia added.
The Uribe senator also stated that the country has come with a kind “almost extortion” by Fecode “against Colombian children.”