Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Peru's Teacher's Union (SUTEP) Agrees to Suspend Violent Strikes

(LIP-ir) -- Teachers belonging to Peru's teacher's union (SUTEP) have decided and announced to temporarily suspend their strike and protest, which began July 5, to the new teacher's law approved by the government.

Protests began when teachers questioned the constitutionality of the new law, declaring it was being imposed on them and they did not have a fair say.

SUTEP leaders have also expressed concerns over whether the public school system will be privatized or not.

In a press conference with Peru's Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo, Minister of Education José Luis Chang, Congressional President Mercedes Cabanillas and SUTEP General Secretary Luis Muñoz, the strike's suspension and the beginning of negotiations were confirmed this afternoon.

Muñoz gave Peru's Premier a document stating the temporary suspension of the strike, as soon as a committee was formed to discuss matters listed on an agenda.

The union leader stated that SUTEP will be making sure that everything is clarified, for the good of Peru's children.

- related articles -
separator
	Protestors Set Fire and Paralyze Airport in Cusco, Peru (by LIP, Jul 19, 2007)
separator
-

 | |

• APEC PERU 2008 : APEC daily news round up
• Politics : U.S. Ambassador speaks on military base in Peru & effects of U.S. financial crisis
• Agriculture : Peru: Food prices drop in Lima markets
• Art/Culture/History : Proposal to create Peru's Ministry of Culture to be finished by the end of 2008
• APEC PERU 2008 : APEC Economies to discuss solutions to global financial crisis

# Carlos Bagati says :
20 July, 2007 [ 10:44 ]

I am confused. If Mr. Munoz makes the claim that SUTEP is concerned for the welfare of Peru's children, then why did not SUTEP ask for the teachers to take the revaluation exam? Would not most people demand for better teachers for their children? 

# Jeff Robins says :
20 July, 2007 [ 10:51 ]

Carlos people with common sense would demand for better educators for sure. That is all the goverment was asking for. SUTEP has demanded better pay for teachers, the government in return was only asking for them too prove they were worth a raise.

# Anton says :
2 September, 2008 [ 20:28 ]

On the other hand educators go into the field knowing they won't be paid what they could make in other areas. The reason is their devotion to education. There devotion to the betterment of all humanity. Educators are among the most selfless and devoted members of any society. For their efforts, at best they live as one writer has put it "lives of gentile poverty." It is the happiness of their work that brings them to it. If the police are getting a raise, why not the teachers, who's work is as important? But the struggle is not over their pay, it's about the quality of education for all of the Peruvian people. Not just the well off. Privatization is a sure way to damage that and that and the other concerns SUTEP is championing are legitimate.

It's the same in the U.S., where educators are paid poorly and blamed when the real problem is poor and inequitable financing for good infrastructure and learning materials for all students, not only the ones who live in the neighborhoods of the rich. But unlike the teachers of the United States, Peru's educators are brave and devoted enough not to sit down and take these assults on the knowledge of the children of Peru, even if that means taking the matter to the streets. Which the teachers of the United States are generally afraid to do because though I admire them, they are more worried about their jobs than their mission. And do not understand how to use their collective power. 

# Anton says :
2 September, 2008 [ 20:33 ]

Yes, thats "genteel", not gentile...