Spain’s students plan nationwide strike to demand face-to-face teaching

SPAIN’S Students Union is set to stage a three-day nationwide strike in protest over the conditions for the start of the new academic year.18 as a “defence of our right to a face-to-face, quality public education and with safe classrooms.”

Union members lined up at the entrance to the Education and Professional Training Ministry on Wednesday morning to call on all students to support the strike and to demand there should be no repeat of what spokesperson Coral Latorre claimed was the “disaster” of last term’s online teaching.

“Young people want to go back to the classroom”, LaTorre stressed.

She also said there should be an end to the criminalisation of young people for outbreaks of Covid-19 and for the education situation.

The union wants Education Minister Coral Latorre to draw up a public school rescue plan and for a mass recruitment of teachers.

It believes there should be no more than 15 students in a class, adequate spaces and guaranteed cleaning services.

A further demand is for the ministry to establish a negotiating table with the unions, teachers, families and students.

“For five months we’ve seen the Education Minister with her arms crosses, not having taken any kind of measure to guarantee our right to study and to safe classrooms”, LaTorre told Spanish press.

As well as staging its own strike, the union will join a teachers strike in the Madrid region on September 9 and 10 and will be out on the streets for the Madrid “Marea Verde” demonstration to demand a safe return to schools on September 5.