Teachers and other school employees will demonstrate in front of parliament on May 7, the Trade Union Association of Employees in Education and Science decided on Wednesday, April 24. The protest should take place just as the parliamentary committee on education discusses a report on the state of education in Slovakia prepared by Education Minister Dušan Čaplovič.
The trade unions are pressing their demand for a €200-million per year increase in funding for education in Slovakia, and for this to be embedded in the report. Čaplovič's report doesn't provide any specifics on how much money should be allocated to education, merely stating that the level of funding should reach 6 percent of GDP by 2020.
"Everything in the report is based on the year 2020, but this government has a mandate until only 2016," said union leader Pavel Ondek, as quoted by the TASR newswire. "We expect that nearly every district in Slovakia will provide one bus [full of people to attend the protest]. If our expectations pan out, the protest may feature up to 5,000 people," said Ondek, adding that schools throughout Slovakia will operate normally during the strike, with teachers not participating in the protest being advised to wear yellow ribbons.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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