School Teachers Express Concern of Growing School Absentism Due to the Crisis

By: Agencies

Caracas, March 9th, 2018.- A group of teachers met with the aporrea.org team, aimed to expressed their concern about the rise in school absenteeism.

"It is becoming increasingly difficult for students in our schools to attend classes. First of all, it is a viacrucis to bring breakfast." Most schools do not have the School Feeding Program (PAE). Many children do not have breakfast, and parents find it impossible to send them to school. Also, many children start missing classes because they can not have clean uniforms, since soap prices far exceed the minimum wage," the teacher Maricarmen Rebolledo, who works at a national school in western Caracas, said.

"A pencil costs between 30 and 40 thousand Bs, a white A4 sheet ,Bs 6,500. A notebook is close to Bs 200,000. Our children go to school poorly eaten, poorly dressed and without resources to meet the school day. The crisis to which the bad decisions of the government have taken us, together with the speculation that derives from a country without control, threaten the education of children who, unfortunately, have had to live this calamitous situation, "he says. the teacher of third graoa, Norelkys Zambrano who works in a school in Catia.

"It is not only the unfortunate situation that our students are going through. We, the teachers, usually must go to work walking because of the lack of cash, or because, simply, the salary is not enough for covering the tickets. Many classmates come to teach without having breakfast because the salaries are not enough for eating. The truth is that the biggest test of our vocation is to teach today, we are impoverished teachers teaching impoverished children. this defenselessness and that is achieved by organizing ourselves beyond the unions kneeling to the government who negotiate our conditions of work and existence", Carmen Ruiz said.