Venezuela: Maduro promises aid to teachers and asks them to return to classrooms amid desertion

Nicolás Maduro promised a set of aid to public sector teachers, whom he called to return to the classrooms, from which thousands of teachers deserted in recent years due to low salaries and working conditions, regarding the beginning of the new 2024-2025 school year.

“I ask all teachers, I call on you, for the love of your vocation, for the love you have for this country, to return to the classrooms in schools, high schools, and for the communities to help us.” “We are going to go support all these teachers who return to class because we need them to strengthen the educational system,” said the president.

In a televised event – in which the Chavista Minister of Education, Héctor Rodríguez – participated, Maduro explained that the Government has designed “eight fronts of action to improve the quality of work and life of the Venezuelan teachers”, since in thousands of institutions Teachers only attend two or three days a week to dedicate the rest of the time to other tasks that generate greater income.

This plan, he explained, includes a health program, another for the acquisition or improvement of housing, transportation subsidies, access to food bags, a “credit policy,” a “comprehensive training” system, and the provision of uniforms and materials. of work.

However, Maduro has not explained whether this aid plan includes an increase in teachers’ salaries, which has been the central reason for the protests that this union has staged in the last eight years, when, according to the group’s estimates, thousands of teachers left the country due to the economic crisis.

The Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM) calculated that the average salary of a teacher per month is about $21 dollars at the official exchange rate, which it considers insufficient to cover the cost of the basic food basket. calculated in August by the organization at $107.8 dollars per person.

In addition to the salary issue, teachers denounce the deterioration of the physical infrastructure of educational institutions, to which the Maduro regime assured that this year it repaired 8,000 schools and high schools, without explaining the scope of these arrangements.

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