Acapulco, Guerrero - Giving classes on weekends and in overtime on afternoons are some of the ways in which teachers of the State Coordinating Committee of Education Workers in Guerrero (CETEG) seek to recover the school year after two months and eleven days of work stoppage in the state in southern Mexico.
The Secretary of Education in Guerrero, Silvia Romero Suarez, told CNNMéxico that the state government and dissident teachers have agreed on the urgency of starting the program to recover missed classes.
"The teachers have not given up their struggle, but they have now decided not to leave the classroom and to retrieve the number of hours of lost classes," she said, assuring that both sides have reached a verbal agreement to restore the school year.The state official said that in some schools, students will receive classes on Saturdays and Sundays, while others will extend their hours only from Monday to Saturday. In some schools, teachers of the CETEG agreed with the Secretariat of Education of Guerrero that they will work from Monday to Friday full time, teaching in the afternoons [Mexcian schools have half-day sessions].
"They are committed to work Saturdays and Sundays, in order to increase the normal hours. There are other teachers who have decided to work overtime in the afternoons," she said.The CETEG teachers have staged a sit-in in Chilpancingo [the state capital] from February 25 to May 7, to protest the education reform law pushed by the federal government.
On Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, the dissident teachers freed educational offices they had held for more than two months in the seven regions of the state, except those located in the Low Mountain region. They also freed the headquarters of the Secretariat of Education of Guerrero in Chilpancingo.
CETEG spokesman, Roman Meynardo López Pachuca, told CNNMéxico that agreements with the government of Guerrero were established in order not to affect the school year, but he said the teachers will continue their movement against the education law and are preparing a new mobilization in Chilpancingo for May 15.
López Pachuca noted that one of the conditions placed on the negotiating table with the state government was "to respect their struggle and end the harassment and persecution" of which, he said, they have been victims in the past few days.
"We are watching how the legal proceedings against our members go, so the struggle is not repressed," the spokesman for the dissident teachers said.The agreements between the parties came about on Thursday afternoon after the chief judge of first criminal court, Leoncio Molina, issued indictments of the four CETEG members who were arrested and released a week ago Friday.
MV Note: The four teachers are charged with rioting and damages to property for their participation in the sit-in in the state education offices. They were released on bail and await a judge's decision as to their innocence or guilt.
The legal department of the CETEG is working on a possible appeal of the case, Lopez Pachuca said.
... The attorney general of Guerrero, Marta Elba Garzón Bernal, said last week that more than 40 arrest warrants have been issued against members of the CETEG, although for reasons of "secrecy and responsibility" she did not elaborate on this issue in order to avoid "social instability."
The CETEG spokesman said that there are over 180 legal proceedings by the Attorney General of Guerrero against dissidents teachers. Spanish original