By: Sara Bertoncelj / Nova24tv
“Today, it is worth remembering all those teachers who, despite extreme pressure from SVIZ and Levica party activist Branimir Štrukelj to definitively devalue the teaching profession to the level of political reckoning, still teach, even remotely,” said Ukom director Uroš Urbanija 9.th of March. On the other hand, former Minister of Education Jernej Pikalo is critical of those schools where they are not on strike today. A survey by Slovenske novice showed that 68 percent of respondents did not support the strike.
Today, there was a general strike of employees in education – it was supposed to draw attention to the inadequate evaluation of work. Schools and kindergartens will be closed, there will be no pedagogical and research process at the faculties. For the youngest, whose parents will have no other choice, care will be organised. “We are not on strike because individuals are dissatisfied, but because our work is devalued,” said educator Petra Koritnik from Ljubljana’s Jarše Kindergarten, where 80 out of 92 employees are on strike, according to N1: educators, laundresses, janitors, cooks, and professionals.
Many employees did not attend the strike
Unlike Koritnik, some educators and teachers decided to continue their work today: “I work too. The only educator in our kindergarten. I have two children for whom parents could not find care. It is not beyond principle. I am principled because I know that after the elections it will be time for talks and coordination,” educator Zdenka wrote on Twitter. Former Minister of Education Jernej Pikalo was critical of the fact that they are not on strike in some places. He wrote that from the list of schools where they do not strike, it is clear which government schools are filled with taxpayers’ money who do not have solidarity with other employees in education. However, he did not explain why he did not take care of the satisfaction of employees in this sector during his ministry.
“We could wait for another moment, another time when the situation in schools would normalise,” Branko Lah, the principal of Vito Kraigher Elementary School, told Planet TV about the strike. The director of the private Waldorf school in Maribor, Andrej Ornik, also said that the employees would not take part in the strike – mainly because the students had recently been far behind due to the epidemic. Also, in the private Institute of St. Stanislav, within which both the kindergarten and the Alojzij Šuštar primary school and the Škofijska classical high school operate, the strike is not taking place – primarily because they do not have a union.
Today, Prime Minister Janez Janša tweeted about the strike or Branimir Štrukelj (head of SVIZ):
It is unacceptable for any democracy that an activist of the @strankalevica on the helm of @SVIZSlovenije is abusing 90,000 school employees and hundreds of thousands of children and parents suffering damage for the political propaganda of his extremist party.