Fight for places has closed 11 schools

Michael Taylor

Global Courant 2023-05-02 10:51:33

While thousands of teachers practically lived stationed in all the departmental addresses of Education in the country to take care of and bid for their places won in the contest, more than a hundred children (it is estimated that there are more) suffered their absence because they have not had a single job. just school day.

According to a survey conducted by the NGO Association for a more Society Fair (ASJ) and to the verification carried out in the field by LA PRENSA Premium, in the middle of May, there are still children who haven’t started their academic year because they don’t have teachers.

The contest for the assignment of permanent positions to teachers has already closed the second phase: that of the public hearings, which indicates that the last position that was available has already been delivered.

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Dennis Caceresdirector of Education of this organization, regretted that all the process that will allow some teachers to have a permanent job, and leave the internship or temporary job that they had for years due to failed competitions and that has already been going on for several months, is having an impact on the development of classes at the levels of pre-basic, basic, third cycle and secondary.

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Teachers were assigned to the educational centers of El Merendón that had their own budget structures in the current contest, but the deficit continues.

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In the survey carried out by them in five departments of the country, they detected that of 40 educational centers visited, 20% have problems with teacher appointments.

“We need a teacher, put their hands on their conscience, we want a place here.”

Carlos García, father of a family in Guanales

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In other words, in that quick count alone, some eight educational centers in Santa Barbara, Francisco Morazán, El Paraíso, Valle and Choluteca They have not yet started classes, or in other words, the schools are completely closed and have not opened all year.

That measurement also identified several schools that are short of teachers, resulting in several grades not starting school either.

Other teachers have been appointed, but have not arrived and in some places, parents reject the newly appointed.

With this situation, the students of these centers have already lost 25% of the school year of classes, and 25% of the learning that they should have already acquired, condemned Cáceres.

“In El Merendón we need nine basic teachers and six for the third level.”

Elder Iván Rivas, director of the El Merendón District

Because they believe the problem is bigger and spreads across the country, they will post a fuller investigation with more centers closed the other month.

THE PREMIUM PRESS It verified that four single-teacher schools in El Merendón are also closed, and in at least one, the children have not had a single day of school.

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To have an idea of ​​what happens, in the case of Cortés, in this department 4,390 approved the teaching contest held in 2022, but of all of them, Not all of them got a place.

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Teachers per educational center must work in El Merendón in the third cycle, but most only have two, which the Departmental appointed this year.

Those who did not succeed, were able to process a license that exempts them from submitting to the next contest and leading the lists of that one for new places. Overwhelmed by the pressure of the teachers, the Minister of Education, Daniel Espondaadmitted two weeks ago that to solve the problem of lack of teachers it is necessary to create some 6,000 new budgetary structures for the next year.

“There is ungovernability in the educational system; the minister must decide with interim periods”.

Dennis Cáceres, ASJ Director of Education

He added that “the country is obliged to create new teaching positions, because we have already exhausted the ones we generated this year; next year we need at least a few 6,000 new places to be able to solve.”

Throughout the country, only 14,000 positions were offered for 38,000 teachers who took the evaluation, which left out thousands who must continue working in the interim. Currently, the public system has 55,000 teachers.

And the schools closed?

Many teachers are not in the classrooms giving classes because with the contest, the borrowed budget structures with which many worked were given to the newly appointed.

These structures are nothing more than the unique code that is required for the Government to pay teachers and there are entire schools that do not even have one. One of the sectors of San Pedro Sula that has the most problems due to this case is El Merendón.

El Merendón also has a teacher deficit due to enrollment growth. Last year, the registration was 1,360 students in 26 educational centers, 20 attending first to sixth grade, and six from seventh to ninth grade, and this year it rose to 1,520 students. For this reason, to cover this need, El Merendón needs 12 teachers for basic education and five teachers for the third cycle, they do not have a budget structure.

There, the vast majority of schools do not have budgetary structures, said Elder Iván Rivas, District Director #20 of El Merendón.

“We have closed three schools that together have about 150 students. Each one has enrollments between 40 and 50 children,” said the district.

“In previous administrations, what happened is that the teacher left. He put a transfer and took the structure, that is, the code for teachers to receive payment. Because of this, there are several schools in El Merendón that do not have any structure, and therefore cannot have a teacher because there is no code to pay them,” he explained.

In El Merendón, the closed schools are José Trinidad Reyes in the village of San Cristóbal; Héctor Portillo Valle de Miramar; and the Alfonso Salvador Melgar de Guanales, which has a module in one community, and another in another.

“I could choose my place, but they gave me another, it was that or nothing”

The teaching contest is in the final stretch, however, many teachers are dissatisfied.

The departmental directors are under pressure to give the positions to the teachers, but from within, some teachers raise their voices in dissatisfaction because several who did not achieve scores or a good position kept the best positions, due to political patronage or because they bought them.

José, a teacher who asked us to call her that so as not to be harmed in the contest, told LA PRENSA Premium that although she was in the first places in the contest because of her note, she had the option of choosing her place, however, she is not in the place she chose and even teaches two grades, because her place was taken by “a teacher” related to the authorities, and it was to apply for that position or be left with nothing.

“There is a lot of corruption in the contest, in the very administration of the educational centers. Right now there was a lot of politics, many district directors, behind closed doors, sent their teacher friends to good educational centers – the central and beautiful ones – or close to their homes. There are directors who take a grade away from a teacher so that he can dedicate himself to doing administrative procedures and other teachers with two grades and more than 50 children.”

José added that the contest started badly and ended badly, since thousands competed and there were few places. “That has led many to want to enter by force or by paying up to L180,000 for a place. There, low low. One must give in out of sheer necessity.”

Fight for places has closed 11 schools

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