Protests by students in Guía de Isora against education cuts

[KirstyJay]

I've just been for my morning swim in Guía and as I was leaving the pool, all the students were leaving the juventud building on a march to the plaza to protest against education cuts.

Good luck to them!

4013

[fonica]

It's a three day student strike and was organised by the teaching profession.I would be ashamed to call myself a teacher in Tenerife.I think the kids have had two full weeks in school this term after 16 weeks holiday.If it's not a fiesta it's a strike and then we'll have bad weather,storm warnings,A/C faulty,heating faulty etc.etc. Having spent most of my life in teaching,I'm not suggesting that they don't deserve good holidays (well the good teachers deserve good holidays) however the institutos(secondary schools) on the island appear to be staffed by the most disinterested bunch of part timers you could find.They are the last in school in the morning and first out a lunch time.Course work is marked by the pupils themselves and many of the staff are absent more often than they are at work.The strike is about cuts in education but this year (for the first time ever) parents have not had to provide anything other than the very basic materials. It needs to be understood that the money has gone and strikes will not bring it back.At least the teachers are getting paid ,unlike the chemists,builders,school transport providers and so on.........Get back to school and maybe try and work the country out of its crisis, better chance than striking.

[9PLUS]

Teachers have too much perks, they should be on the same kind of contract and receive the same kind of benefits as any other non Government employee.

Get the kids in school for 8 hours a day and education your country.

As for the march.............pfft

[Vortex Wake]

They always say teachers are people who couldn't cut it in the real world.



PS My sister in law is a teacher :(

[KirstyJay]

It's a three day student strike and was organised by the teaching profession.I would be ashamed to call myself a teacher in Tenerife.I think the kids have had two full weeks in school this term after 16 weeks holiday.If it's not a fiesta it's a strike and then we'll have bad weather,storm warnings,A/C faulty,heating faulty etc.etc. Having spent most of my life in teaching,I'm not suggesting that they don't deserve good holidays (well the good teachers deserve good holidays) however the institutos(secondary schools) on the island appear to be staffed by the most disinterested bunch of part timers you could find.They are the last in school in the morning and first out a lunch time.Course work is marked by the pupils themselves and many of the staff are absent more often than they are at work.The strike is about cuts in education but this year (for the first time ever) parents have not had to provide anything other than the very basic materials. It needs to be understood that the money has gone and strikes will not bring it back.At least the teachers are getting paid ,unlike the chemists,builders,school transport providers and so on.........Get back to school and maybe try and work the country out of its crisis, better chance than striking.

I think you misunderstood. It's the STUDENTS protesting, not the teachers striking. I think you need to read up on all the cuts that have happened in the past year.

I agree, there are many teachers that take the ****, but there are many that don't too, and the cuts mean the students are basically getting a much worse level of education than they were...

Larger class sizes, kids starting school later, resources cut, etc. it's not all about the teachers.... But they have had wage cuts too, so there are many things that contribute to a deteriorating education system.

[KirstyJay]

Teachers have too much perks, they should be on the same kind of contract and receive the same kind of benefits as any other non Government employee.

Get the kids in school for 8 hours a day and education your country.

As for the march.............pfft

The actual school hours here are the same as the uk. They are just organized differently.

[fonica]

I think you misunderstood. It's the STUDENTS protesting, not the teachers striking. I think you need to read up on all the cuts that have happened in the past year.

I agree, there are many teachers that take the ****, but there are many that don't too, and the cuts mean the students are basically getting a much worse level of education than they were...

Larger class sizes, kids starting school later, resources cut, etc. it's not all about the teachers.... But they have had wage cuts too, so there are many things that contribute to a deteriorating education system.
In Guaza the teaching staff have made every effort to get the children to strike.If they put as much effort into teaching as they have done with this mindless action,maybe thing would look better. The schools here don't come anywhere near to completing the hours that UK schools do, whichever way they organize their timetable and in all schools the staff arrive with the children in the morning and leave with them at lunchtime. The amount of staff off sick at any one time is unbelievable and is a sign that these people are unhappy in their work so I suggest they get out of teaching and find themselves something else to do instead of damaging a generation of childrens future.Nobody ever said that teaching was easy but dedicated teachers change lives while lazy ********* ruin them. Education standards in Tenerife have been pathetic for years;the years when there wasn't a shortage of money or resources.The only way out of this mess we are ALL in and ALL caused,is hard work,so teachers and students,get back to school and back to work!!!!!!

[Canarian Weekly]

A PROTEST by more than 200 people affected by financial cuts which led to the cancellation of school-bus services for pupils living less than five kilometres from the ESO Institute of Alcalá, has persuaded Guia de Isora Town Council to come up with a surprising solution.

Councillors have agreed to contribute their Christmas bonuses to cover the costs slashed from their budget for this school year by the Ministry of Education.

More... (http://www.canarianweekly.com/schoolkids-xmas-bonus/)

[KirstyJay]

The schools here don't come anywhere near to completing the hours that UK schools do, whichever way they organize their timetable and in all schools the staff arrive with the children in the morning and leave with them at lunchtime.Again, you are far off the mark. I think you should research the school hours and timetables before making these assumptions. My comments come from the fact that I have first hand experience of both the Spanish and the UK system. The lective hours in the UK and here are the same. The timetables are just arranged differently. I'll explain.

The total number of days in any school year in Spain are : 179 + 10 days (5 at the beginning of the year and 5 at the end) where the teachers are present in the school without the students.

source : The current year's official school calendar (http://www.tenerifeforum.org/docs/school-calendar_2012-13.pdf), forwarded to me on request by the headteacher of CEIP Teobaldo Power.

In the UK, you have 190 days.

source : http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/adminandfinance/schooladmin/schoolyear/a0064221/length-of-school-dayyear


Length of school year

All maintained schools and non maintained special schools must open to educate their pupils for at least 380 half-day sessions (190 days) in each school year, unless this is reduced by Parliament.

Amendments in regulations have led to temporary reductions to the length of the school year:

in 2010/11 for the Royal Wedding.
in 2010/11 for schools delivering the primary curriculum in 2011/12, to allow teachers an extra day’s training.
in 2011/12 for all schools, due to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.


In addition to lective periods, teachers in the UK and in Spain are also required to attend training sessions and meetings. It's down to the individual institution how this is organised, however in my old school there were 2 days a week where the teachers stayed until at least 5pm for claustro and parents meetings. Once a fortnight there was an additional claustro too. In the evenings teachers were often required to attend extra training courses at the local CEP (Centro de Profesores) too. I used to teach some of these courses, and they were often 30 hours. 10 sessions of 3 hours weekly.

In Spain, there is only 1 week holiday at Easter and there are no half terms. The weeks that are not taken as holiday during the school year are taken as an extended summer holiday, because it's considered too hot during the summer months in the classrooms.

The school day in the UK consists of 4h 30 minutes of actual teaching time (that's if you include assemblies, which are not theoretically classed as class time, if you don't, there are 4h 10 minutes).

Source : http://www.teachingintheuk.com/go/uk-teaching-info/school-system/


Structure of the typical school day

Primary School

All schools have control over the structure of their own school day although most will finish at 3.30pm. The statutory Literacy Hour and Numeracy Hour is a feature of all school timetables.

The example below illustrates what you will typically find in a primary school. Teaching Personnel Consultants will be able to provide further details of the exact timetable of each individual school.

09.00am Registration
09.10am School Assembly
09.30am Literacy Hour
10.30am Break-time
10.45am Numeracy Hour
11.45am Subject class
12.15pm Lunch
13.30pm Afternoon Registration
13.35pm Classes
14.45pm Break-time
15.00pm Classes
15.30pm End of school day

A school in Spain has 4h 30 mins of class time. Most schools have adopted the 45 minute sessions organisation as follows :

09:00 First session
09:45 Second session
10:30 Third session
11:15 Break/desayuno
11:45 Fourth session
12:30 Fifth session
13:15 Sixth session
14:00 End of school day

If the school has a Comedor, then the children may stay up to 3:30pm, depending on how the school organises the sittings, and some schools provide after school activities until 5pm.

Source : My own first-hand experience.

As you can see, a school in the UK has 1h 45 mins of break time, whereas a school in Spain has only 30 mins of break time, so the school day terminates at 14:00h. This is because families tend to eat together during siesta time. All the shops and businesses also traditionally are closed from 13:00h to 16:00h.

Just because the UK has a different organisation of the hours and holidays, or has different traditions, does not necessarily mean that they have more or less teaching hours. The number of lective hours in set by Europe and is more or less equal in all EU countries.

I hope this has clarified it for you :)

As I said in my earlier post in this thread, I agree with you that there are a lot of teachers that can be lazy and try and milk the system, but that's true of any profession. That's entirely dependent on the individual in the job... but there are also a lot of teachers that DO care about their jobs, don't take lots of days on baja and work hard to provide a high level of education to our kids.

I have experienced both kinds of teachers professionally in Spanish schools, but unfortunately due to the way that teachers are 'allocated' positions each year, a headteacher can find themselves with a great team one year and a naff team another and there's nothing they can do apart from try and work around it. And it's certainly not fair for the good teachers to have to cover for a colleague that takes the ****... but again, this is true of any working environment.... not just schools.

I consider myself lucky that I worked in a school with a great team for many years and I still have many friends contacts in the schools here that I value greatly. :)

[Fivepence]

That's a very clear explanation KJ.

[fonica]

Yes it is a clear explanation of how schools should work in Spain.However we know from our own considerable experience in education here on the island, that this doesn't happen.For example;the last school year in Guaza, the instituto was closed for 10 weeks whilst work that wasn't completed properly during the 3 months summer vacation,was finished to a safe standard.For the first two of these 10 weeks the children didn't go to school.Then they went to school from 2 until 7.30 in the afternoons in Las Galletas. From the beginning of June to when the schools close around the 20th, the childen finish early and the staff go into "holiday "mode. From the 17th September until the beginning of October after the 15 week summer break,the staff are still in "holiday" mode and are preparing the students and themselves for the new school year. This takes four months out of the year.We then have numerous local and national fiesta days in the Christmas term,carnival in the Easter term as well more local fiestas.This term there are at least 7 fiesta days leading up to the two and a half week Christmas holiday.
The students strike backed to the hilt if not organised,by the teachers meant that a full week of term was wasted.My grandchildren went to school along with several other children after two days standing outside the college and were told by staff that they would not be giving lessons as any work done would have to be repeated when the striking students returned to school. Last Friday, when normality should have returned,my 14 year old grandaughter had 4 "free" periods where teachers were unavailable to teach.
I know there are a few excellent schools and some excellent teachers here but they are few and far between and the problem isn't lack of money although this isn't helping,the problem is lack of interest in the children and their education.If you speak to the good teachers in any school here,they will tell you just how many of the staff should not be employed in the teaching profession. The majority of teachers here send their children to private schools hence their lack of concern.
I understand that we all want the best education for our children and I'm delighted that you had a good experience where you worked. I think it may have been a primary school rather than an instituto and may have been in a village rather than an area populated by immigrants but still good to hear.My small grandson is at the local infant school and the staff couldn't be better.The problems come in the secondary system which is so important for both the kids and the country.
I am really scared by what I see daily in our school and only wish that I could see some hope of improvement in the future.Sadly I can't.

[fonica]

Another three days off for the students in the instituto in Guaza.Today because it's raining,tomorrow because it's a fiesta day and Friday because the lazy b********don't want to open the school.(Their excuse is that they are not having the full week off for Carnival).I suppose the students are preparing themselves for a future of doing very little by doing very little now.Thanks to the staff of Guaza you are really setting an example!!!!