Teachers’ unions in Montevideo, Uruguay held a 24-hour strike on Friday to protest recent violent attacks against teachers. The strikes were a response to two incidents at separate schools in the capital that occurred within a four-day span.
According to the Association of Secondary Education Teachers of Montevideo (ADES), a student attacked a teacher at Liceo 39 High School in Piedras Blancas on Monday, hitting her “in the genitals, one eye and the chest. ” ADES Montevideo described the situation as “critical”, adding that teachers have “neither sufficient nor adequate resources” to take care of the needs of students in “vulnerable situations”.
A statement published on the ADES Montevideo website explains that this was not an isolated incident, listing 11 acts of violence that have occurred this academic year. He accuses the authorities of ignoring the unions’ requests for support, of failing to meet teachers’ requests for inspections in secondary schools and of ignoring union organizing. The statement calls on the authorities to provide an “immediate response” to the situation.
In a separate incident on Thursday, the mother of a student allegedly hit the principal, a teacher and an assistant at the “Escuela 33” elementary school in Flor de Maroñas, according to the television news program. Underlined. A student who intervened in the violence is known to have also hit a teacher.
The Montevideo Teachers’ Association (AdeMU) released a statement expressing its “solidarity with the attacked colleagues and the entire school community”, reaffirming its “rejection of all forms of violence”.
The association also criticized the time it took police to respond to the scene, claiming police did not arrive at the school for 35 minutes and that, when they did, officers took more than 60 minutes to intervene.
It is said that the director was instructed by the police to go to the police station to report the violence. When she told officers she’d better wait for medical help to arrive because she had a bad headache, she was told she would go from “complainant to accused” if she didn’t go to the police station, according to newspaper. the daily.
Uruguay sees significantly less school-related violence than the United States and other major Latin American countries such as Brazil, which has experienced 23 violent school attacks in the past 20 years.
A 2021 UNICEF study on school-related violence in Latin America found that 8% of Uruguayan parents perceived a high threat of student violence with guns, compared to 24% in Colombia, 23% in the Republic Dominican and 18% in Guatemala.
A separate study found that 5% of Uruguayan school-age boys could be considered bullies, while 4.5% could be considered victims and 0.7% victim-bullies. Furthermore, over half of the students surveyed said they perceived that teachers had a positive attitude towards them, but this fell to 40% of students in evening classes. While 28% said that they are concerned about the attitudes of adults at school.
Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou dismissed claims that the government has failed to listen to teachers’ unions, claiming, “If there’s one thing the government has done, it’s to listen. We may not have agreed.”
He added that the strike “ends up harming those who need education the most: children”.
