The education general strike, the biggest such protest in 18 years, has entered its third week and teachers’ unions have announced that the teachers’ strike will continue until they make demands on pay and the “future of education”.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Education will hold a meeting with representatives of teachers, students and parents regarding the national exams, Florian Lixandru, State Secretary of the Ministry of Education, told Euronews Romania on Monday evening.

The education strike continues. Trade unions: “Change your discourse and assume that from today education will be a national priority”

While more than 300,000 students must now prepare for national end-of-year exams – the National Assessment and Baccalaureate – the general education strike has entered its third week and will continue until at least Tuesday, when a new round of talks is due to take place. .

This is after all the discussions and negotiations between the Government and the education unions failed.

Education unions have announced that the teachers’ strike will continue until their demands for pay and the “future of education” are resolved. They say the government’s response to their protest “leads us to believe that they will go back to the old ways after this strike is over.”

According to the press release of the main federations of trade unions in the field of education, the main requirements are:

• establishing by law that the salary of a beginning teacher must be at least equal to the average gross salary in the economy
• application of the tariff grid for education in a term shorter than the three years announced by the Government
• the salary increase is even higher than in the decree issued the other day
• providing from January 1, 2024, at least 15% of the expenditures of the consolidated budget for education

“Stop scolding us, stop sending us to classes! Change the language and start from the fact that education will become a national priority from today,” say the trade unions.

Attack of Yohannis

The highly critical reaction of the unions came after late last week President Klaus Iohannis launched a scathing attack on teachers who decided to continue the strike.

“How dare anyone jeopardize the national exams? (…) The government gave them everything they asked for, why should they continue the strike?” said the head of state.

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Trade unions accuse that the teachers’ demands are not included in the GEO recently adopted by the Government

The most recent executive proposal passed through GEO was a salary increase of 1,000 lei gross for teachers and 400 lei gross for non-teaching staff, with further gradual salary increases over the next three years through the upcoming salary law.

However, union leaders say that the Government’s proposal does not meet the demands of the striking teachers, and the main demand of the teachers does not appear in the government’s order. The executive branch responded Friday through spokesman Dan Carbonara, who says the reference the unions pointed out as missing from GEO can be found in an explanatory note to the order, but it should be noted that the explanatory note does not carry the force of law.

The president of the “Spiru Haret” Federation, Marius Nistor, once again emphasized that the demand of trade unionists to increase the salary of newcomers is not contained in the text of the Government’s order, but only in the explanatory memorandum. and the striking teachers do not want to stop the labor conflict because they have no guarantees of salary increases and investment in education.

The leader of the Federation of Trade Unions “Spiru Kharet” clarified that 75 percent of teachers are on strike.

About 183,000 Year 8 students are due to take national assessments and 142,000 Year 12 students are due to take the Baccalaureate, and if teachers do not return to school soon, the calendar for these exams will be rescheduled due to “extensions and rescheduling of tests”, she announced. Minister of Education Lygia Deka.