It was the CCOO union which first raised the possibility of a "truce" in the teachers strike yesterday, and the Assembly of Teachers later accepted a return to work, at the same time overwhelmingly maintaining the strike action. So, the strike has not been called off, it has only been suspended, and it could be reactivated at any time. While Monday is believed to be the day when schooling will resume, even this is not totally certain yet; there is to be a meeting today with the parents association to discuss this. There is some feeling among teachers that going back on Monday would look as though they had caved in to the regional government. What is also far from certain is what will be taught and, perhaps more importantly, in what language. Therefore, will TIL be applied or put on hold for the time being?
The parents association has welcomed the return to work but still supports the teachers against the government. The unions, perhaps acknowledging rising levels of opposition among at least some parents, have taken the view that a temporary suspension will bring some relief to these parents.
In the meantime, yesterday the government said that it would seek to employ over 100 more language assistants who would help with English conversation. These assistants would, it would appear, be taken on through schemes whereby student teachers from North America and Britain can be paid 700 euros per month for typically some 14 or 15 hours per week as part of their practical training.
The parents association has called for there to be mediation between the teachers and government, reviving the offer of the rector of the university in Palma to mediate (an offer the government rejected) or suggesting that the Ombudsman becomes involved. In other news related to the strike, the fund to help teachers financially during the strike (and they can lose up to one hundred euros a day if on strike) has risen to over 370,000 euros.
The government says that it has given ground on a number of issues to the teachers, but the teachers are still holding out for TIL to be applied only voluntarily at both primary and secondary levels this year (the government has been willing to make it voluntary in secondary schools), for directors of schools in Menorca to be reinstated (they were sacked for not complying with government requirements regarding TIL) and for a relaxation of the law of symbols so that the display of the Catalan flag would be permitted.
Showing posts with label Teachers strike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teachers strike. Show all posts
Saturday, October 05, 2013
Thursday, October 03, 2013
Why I Love The Teachers Strike
Love is of course the wrong word. But loving something has, since the invention of liking something (the Facebook invention, that is), become a state of mega-liking. The vernacular now demands that because one finds something variously especially interesting, especially absurd or especially entertaining, one loves it. To just like it would not be sufficient, and it may be that this love is the consequence of the three variables I cite (there are bound to be others) having combined to create a state of love supreme. Where the teachers strike is concerned, it has.
To give an example of absurdity colliding with entertainment, let me give you what happened in the Balearic parliament the day after the big demo. When President Bauzá spoke, members of the opposition, some of whom were wearing the green t-shirt of protest, lay other t-shirts out in front of them. When the education minister spoke, not only were the t-shirts on display, so were signs saying "resign".
Dignities of parliaments and all that, here was just one manifestation of the often juvenile, always deeply partisan and divided nature of what passes for political debate. In fact, debate is also a wrong word. It is essentially name-calling that ends in a vote that is pre-determined (because there is never any dissent that leads to the party lines not being observed) by an institution - the parliament - which for all the good it does and purpose it serves may as well not exist. As the president and his cabinet demonstrated only three weeks ago, parliament is unnecessary when a government which has been given a telling-off by the high court gathers its cabinet together in an exclusive room and comes up with an alternative law and then later hands it to parliament as a fait accompli.
If you wish to know about Mallorcan society, culture, behaviour, politics, then you need look no further than the teachers strike and the issues that surround it and which have led to it. This is really why I love it, as it brings all these together under one tri-cornered umbrella of interest, absurdity and entertainment, calls it one thing - trilingualism - but achieves in being very many other things all at the same time.
It may not be necessary to identify these various issues, but in case they need spelling out, then here goes - the Catalan language, the Mallorquín dialect, regionalism, nationalism (the two competing types - Spanish versus Mallorcan), the in-any-event underperforming education system, Mallorcan attitudes (insularity, for example), union power, the political system. There are doubtless others, and of these, I'll select one, which isn't specifically a Mallorcan issue but which, nonetheless, indicates how impoverished the political system is because of the manipulation and apparent disrespect of the people.
The propaganda that has come from the government over TIL has at times been absurd, and I have loved it for the entertainment value that stems from this absurdity. It's a loving that is founded on not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It shouldn't be entertaining but how else can you reconcile some of it?
Propaganda works if people wish to believe it. Say something several times, then people do start to believe it, even when it's wrong. As evidence, I give you the case of the Partido Popular's manifesto, or at least the PP's claim that TIL was an election issue and one for which it received a majority at the last election. There is one very simple way of discovering that this was not the case, and anyone can do it. All that is needed is to go to the PP Balearics website and look at the manifesto. Nowhere is there any mention of teaching in a foreign language. There is reference to pupils having mastered a foreign European language by the time they leave school, but this does not equate to TIL; all it does equate to is what was already in place - the teaching of English, not teaching in English.
If TIL had been an electoral issue (which it wasn't), would it not have been the case that there would have been one mighty great discussion about it prior to the elections? There was no discussion, because there was no TIL. End of. TIL was invented in January this year because what had been an electoral issue - free selection (Castellano or Catalan) - failed totally. End of.
I shouldn't be entertained by the government treating the people as though they were idiots through attempting to spin into existence and the public consciousness something which didn't exist, but I can't help but be entertained by its sheer absurdity. I truly wish that I didn't love the teachers strike because I know how many parents are so utterly brassed off with it, but when I come to the write the book about Mallorca's society, culture and politics, it will have its own special place. Love it.
To give an example of absurdity colliding with entertainment, let me give you what happened in the Balearic parliament the day after the big demo. When President Bauzá spoke, members of the opposition, some of whom were wearing the green t-shirt of protest, lay other t-shirts out in front of them. When the education minister spoke, not only were the t-shirts on display, so were signs saying "resign".
Dignities of parliaments and all that, here was just one manifestation of the often juvenile, always deeply partisan and divided nature of what passes for political debate. In fact, debate is also a wrong word. It is essentially name-calling that ends in a vote that is pre-determined (because there is never any dissent that leads to the party lines not being observed) by an institution - the parliament - which for all the good it does and purpose it serves may as well not exist. As the president and his cabinet demonstrated only three weeks ago, parliament is unnecessary when a government which has been given a telling-off by the high court gathers its cabinet together in an exclusive room and comes up with an alternative law and then later hands it to parliament as a fait accompli.
If you wish to know about Mallorcan society, culture, behaviour, politics, then you need look no further than the teachers strike and the issues that surround it and which have led to it. This is really why I love it, as it brings all these together under one tri-cornered umbrella of interest, absurdity and entertainment, calls it one thing - trilingualism - but achieves in being very many other things all at the same time.
It may not be necessary to identify these various issues, but in case they need spelling out, then here goes - the Catalan language, the Mallorquín dialect, regionalism, nationalism (the two competing types - Spanish versus Mallorcan), the in-any-event underperforming education system, Mallorcan attitudes (insularity, for example), union power, the political system. There are doubtless others, and of these, I'll select one, which isn't specifically a Mallorcan issue but which, nonetheless, indicates how impoverished the political system is because of the manipulation and apparent disrespect of the people.
The propaganda that has come from the government over TIL has at times been absurd, and I have loved it for the entertainment value that stems from this absurdity. It's a loving that is founded on not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It shouldn't be entertaining but how else can you reconcile some of it?
Propaganda works if people wish to believe it. Say something several times, then people do start to believe it, even when it's wrong. As evidence, I give you the case of the Partido Popular's manifesto, or at least the PP's claim that TIL was an election issue and one for which it received a majority at the last election. There is one very simple way of discovering that this was not the case, and anyone can do it. All that is needed is to go to the PP Balearics website and look at the manifesto. Nowhere is there any mention of teaching in a foreign language. There is reference to pupils having mastered a foreign European language by the time they leave school, but this does not equate to TIL; all it does equate to is what was already in place - the teaching of English, not teaching in English.
If TIL had been an electoral issue (which it wasn't), would it not have been the case that there would have been one mighty great discussion about it prior to the elections? There was no discussion, because there was no TIL. End of. TIL was invented in January this year because what had been an electoral issue - free selection (Castellano or Catalan) - failed totally. End of.
I shouldn't be entertained by the government treating the people as though they were idiots through attempting to spin into existence and the public consciousness something which didn't exist, but I can't help but be entertained by its sheer absurdity. I truly wish that I didn't love the teachers strike because I know how many parents are so utterly brassed off with it, but when I come to the write the book about Mallorca's society, culture and politics, it will have its own special place. Love it.
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
A Hundred Thousand Strong: Balearics teachers strike
The exact figure doesn't really matter. The mass of protestors that took to Palma's streets on Sunday evening (augmented in spirit by protestors in the other islands) was impressive. The regional government said, as I knew full well it would, that this mass was representative of only a small percentage of Mallorca's population (less than 10%, depending on which figure one goes with). You can read all sorts of things into the size of a protest, both for the cause and indifferent to or against it, but protests of Sunday's size are rare; so much so that the Palma demonstration is said to be the largest ever staged in Mallorca.
One does, though, have to make certain qualifications about the protest. As with many a public display of opposition, there were causes other than trilingual teaching that were being given an airing. But then, the teachers strike has never been only about trilingual teaching. As I have said before, if the issue were only trilingualism, there would be no strike. Politics, those to do with the Catalan language and with Catalanism, invaded the protest as surely as they have invaded the motives for the strike.
Regardless of these motives, however, there is a situation in which schoolchildren are being deprived of their education. The strike now in its third week can only cause damage. It has to end. But it cannot end in the way that the government might wish it to, namely the unions buckling to TIL being voluntary in secondary schools (one of the government's main concessions). It has to end by TIL being postponed for this school year at all levels.
Inevitably with such disputes there is dissembling from both sides and propaganda that muddies opinion. The government has attempted to argue that TIL was a manifesto pledge, when it was not, and that there was training and preparation being offered before TIL was passed into law. There may indeed have been some talk of special training in English, but the fact is that TIL was not on the agenda until January this year. It was then that the government first proposed it; the bill was passed three months later.
In January, the government said that there would be training and also ongoing "activities" to assist in bringing teachers' levels of English up to something like the required level. There had been no formal statement of training before this. But whether there was training or not, the government was naïve if it believed that teachers could be certain of having acquired the requisite level of language competence.
Initially, and before the bill was passed, TIL was only to come in at primary level. When the bill was enacted, I was amazed to see secondary level included as well and to also see which subjects were included - maths, natural and social sciences. It's why I have referred to TIL as revolution and not evolution. Disregarding similar schemes elsewhere, the government was intent on introducing a system that should, in order to operate effectively, be planned to be implemented over more or less the length of a child's time in school. It wouldn't necessarily have to be so long but it certainly couldn't just be brought in and brought in for older age groups.
But of course TIL has only so much to do with education. Both sides have made the issue political, but it was the government which made it political and made it worse because of its absurd time frame, its sacking of school directors and its disregard of the high court.
How long might this strike go on for? It could all be over very quickly, it could drag on. For it to end to the unions' dissatisfaction would be the worst scenario. If teachers were to return to work harbouring grievances, morale in schools and classrooms would be poor. But however it ends, there is a wider social dimension that needs to be considered. Children, in particular those at secondary level, have been exposed to a strike that lays bare the divisions over Catalan. They have teachers defending Catalan, parents defending Catalan. They themselves have been protesting against the government. The radicalisation of Mallorca's children grows. This strike, this TIL is storing up potentially greater problems in the future.
One does, though, have to make certain qualifications about the protest. As with many a public display of opposition, there were causes other than trilingual teaching that were being given an airing. But then, the teachers strike has never been only about trilingual teaching. As I have said before, if the issue were only trilingualism, there would be no strike. Politics, those to do with the Catalan language and with Catalanism, invaded the protest as surely as they have invaded the motives for the strike.
Regardless of these motives, however, there is a situation in which schoolchildren are being deprived of their education. The strike now in its third week can only cause damage. It has to end. But it cannot end in the way that the government might wish it to, namely the unions buckling to TIL being voluntary in secondary schools (one of the government's main concessions). It has to end by TIL being postponed for this school year at all levels.
Inevitably with such disputes there is dissembling from both sides and propaganda that muddies opinion. The government has attempted to argue that TIL was a manifesto pledge, when it was not, and that there was training and preparation being offered before TIL was passed into law. There may indeed have been some talk of special training in English, but the fact is that TIL was not on the agenda until January this year. It was then that the government first proposed it; the bill was passed three months later.
In January, the government said that there would be training and also ongoing "activities" to assist in bringing teachers' levels of English up to something like the required level. There had been no formal statement of training before this. But whether there was training or not, the government was naïve if it believed that teachers could be certain of having acquired the requisite level of language competence.
Initially, and before the bill was passed, TIL was only to come in at primary level. When the bill was enacted, I was amazed to see secondary level included as well and to also see which subjects were included - maths, natural and social sciences. It's why I have referred to TIL as revolution and not evolution. Disregarding similar schemes elsewhere, the government was intent on introducing a system that should, in order to operate effectively, be planned to be implemented over more or less the length of a child's time in school. It wouldn't necessarily have to be so long but it certainly couldn't just be brought in and brought in for older age groups.
But of course TIL has only so much to do with education. Both sides have made the issue political, but it was the government which made it political and made it worse because of its absurd time frame, its sacking of school directors and its disregard of the high court.
How long might this strike go on for? It could all be over very quickly, it could drag on. For it to end to the unions' dissatisfaction would be the worst scenario. If teachers were to return to work harbouring grievances, morale in schools and classrooms would be poor. But however it ends, there is a wider social dimension that needs to be considered. Children, in particular those at secondary level, have been exposed to a strike that lays bare the divisions over Catalan. They have teachers defending Catalan, parents defending Catalan. They themselves have been protesting against the government. The radicalisation of Mallorca's children grows. This strike, this TIL is storing up potentially greater problems in the future.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Teachers demonstration brings Palma to a standstill
At least 60,000 people are said to have been taking part in a demonstration in the centre of Palma this evening in protest at the introduction of trilingual teaching into Balearics schools by the regional government and in support of the teachers strike, which will enter its third week tomorrow. In addition to unions, various other organisations have supported the demonstration, e.g. the pro-Catalan Obra Cultural Balear and pensioners association. The demonstration is said to be the largest ever staged in Mallorca and has brought Palma in the area in and around the Plaza España to a standstill.
Friday, September 27, 2013
The Power Behind Balearics Trilingualism
What has the teachers strike got to do with Carlos Delgado? The Balearics tourism minister had been quiet on the subject until the other day. His silence was wholly appropriate. Education is not a matter for a tourism minister, but then Delgado is no ordinary tourism minister.
In March 2011, two months before the last regional election, Delgado gave an interview, having been through one of those spells of which he makes a habit and when he appears to have disappeared. He was asked which ministerial post he would like. He had two preferences. One was tourism, the other was education. Where education was concerned, he wanted to see a situation by which parents could choose the language in which their children were taught, the choice being between Castellano and Catalan and one that was indeed established after the election. In the end, he got his wish for tourism, even though the hoteliers had tried to persuade Bauzá not to give him the job. Commenting on his preferences, I observed that "Bauzá has himself become divisive in a way that does not bode well for what should be within his grasp, the presidency of the Balearics. If he bows to Delgado's ambition for education, the divisions are likely to widen. But then who actually makes the decisions and who actually wields the power?"
I was fearful of divisions in Mallorcan and Balearic society that might come with a Bauzá presidency. They had not manifested themselves in quite the way that they have over the past few weeks, but the teachers strike is the consequence of this divisiveness. Concerted industrial action was going to happen at some point, and it now has. Had Delgado been made education minister in 2011, the chances are that it would have happened very much sooner and it would have been a lot bloodier.
One commentator in the Spanish press referred to Delgado recently as "education minister number one". By so doing, a point was emphasised that was widely thought to be the case before the 2011 elections; Delgado was the power to which I referred then, his anti-Catalanism was more vociferous than Bauzá's and had been well-chronicled before Bauzá was plucked from Marratxí obscurity to head the Balearics PP.
The tourism minister's silence over the strike has now been broken, and he has chosen to attack members of his own party: mayors of PP-led towns who do not fully support TIL. These mayors had met with the person who is the education minister, Joana Maria Camps, and had, in essence, called on her to back track. Among them were Sa Pobla's Biel Serra and Pollensa's Tomeu Cifre, mayors of towns with very identifiable Catalan and indeed Catalanist traditions. Delgado wants disciplinary sanctions against mayors who do not follow the party line. What does he propose? That they are thrown out of the party in the same way that Antoni Pastor of Manacor was for refusing to go along with PP anti-Catalan policy?
It has been suggested that it was Delgado who pushed for the removal of the former education minister Rafael Bosch, who was believed to be a moderate and so therefore a "Catalanist". It really is no coincidence that Bosch went very shortly after the original TIL bill was approved in April and was replaced by someone who would do as she was told. The question is, though: told by whom?
It may not ultimately matter who is wielding the power behind the scenes, but by calling for sanctions against mayors, Delgado is adding to the divisiveness that TIL is causing, and one is left to wonder if this is a divisiveness that has been craved. The unions have rejected accusations that they have embarked on a political strike, but their rebuttals do not convince. In turning down Camps' offer to make TIL voluntary for this year at secondary level and demanding instead that it be voluntary at primary level as well, they have tried to stick to the educational knitting, but have undermined their position by demanding also that the "law on symbols" (which covers inter alia the display of the Catalan flag) be withdrawn. What else is this but political?
Had TIL been purely educational there would not be a strike. The chances are that, were educational issues the only ones that mattered, TIL would not even have cropped up, but had it, then its implementation and its preparation would have been very different. It is a policy driven by a political agenda, one driven by Delgado and Bauzá and one that was inevitably going to lead to conflict and division. And the unions have been only too happy to oblige.
In March 2011, two months before the last regional election, Delgado gave an interview, having been through one of those spells of which he makes a habit and when he appears to have disappeared. He was asked which ministerial post he would like. He had two preferences. One was tourism, the other was education. Where education was concerned, he wanted to see a situation by which parents could choose the language in which their children were taught, the choice being between Castellano and Catalan and one that was indeed established after the election. In the end, he got his wish for tourism, even though the hoteliers had tried to persuade Bauzá not to give him the job. Commenting on his preferences, I observed that "Bauzá has himself become divisive in a way that does not bode well for what should be within his grasp, the presidency of the Balearics. If he bows to Delgado's ambition for education, the divisions are likely to widen. But then who actually makes the decisions and who actually wields the power?"
I was fearful of divisions in Mallorcan and Balearic society that might come with a Bauzá presidency. They had not manifested themselves in quite the way that they have over the past few weeks, but the teachers strike is the consequence of this divisiveness. Concerted industrial action was going to happen at some point, and it now has. Had Delgado been made education minister in 2011, the chances are that it would have happened very much sooner and it would have been a lot bloodier.
One commentator in the Spanish press referred to Delgado recently as "education minister number one". By so doing, a point was emphasised that was widely thought to be the case before the 2011 elections; Delgado was the power to which I referred then, his anti-Catalanism was more vociferous than Bauzá's and had been well-chronicled before Bauzá was plucked from Marratxí obscurity to head the Balearics PP.
The tourism minister's silence over the strike has now been broken, and he has chosen to attack members of his own party: mayors of PP-led towns who do not fully support TIL. These mayors had met with the person who is the education minister, Joana Maria Camps, and had, in essence, called on her to back track. Among them were Sa Pobla's Biel Serra and Pollensa's Tomeu Cifre, mayors of towns with very identifiable Catalan and indeed Catalanist traditions. Delgado wants disciplinary sanctions against mayors who do not follow the party line. What does he propose? That they are thrown out of the party in the same way that Antoni Pastor of Manacor was for refusing to go along with PP anti-Catalan policy?
It has been suggested that it was Delgado who pushed for the removal of the former education minister Rafael Bosch, who was believed to be a moderate and so therefore a "Catalanist". It really is no coincidence that Bosch went very shortly after the original TIL bill was approved in April and was replaced by someone who would do as she was told. The question is, though: told by whom?
It may not ultimately matter who is wielding the power behind the scenes, but by calling for sanctions against mayors, Delgado is adding to the divisiveness that TIL is causing, and one is left to wonder if this is a divisiveness that has been craved. The unions have rejected accusations that they have embarked on a political strike, but their rebuttals do not convince. In turning down Camps' offer to make TIL voluntary for this year at secondary level and demanding instead that it be voluntary at primary level as well, they have tried to stick to the educational knitting, but have undermined their position by demanding also that the "law on symbols" (which covers inter alia the display of the Catalan flag) be withdrawn. What else is this but political?
Had TIL been purely educational there would not be a strike. The chances are that, were educational issues the only ones that mattered, TIL would not even have cropped up, but had it, then its implementation and its preparation would have been very different. It is a policy driven by a political agenda, one driven by Delgado and Bauzá and one that was inevitably going to lead to conflict and division. And the unions have been only too happy to oblige.
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